THE 
ANGEL  OF  PAIN 


E.E  BENSON 


H 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


THE 
ANGEL  OF  PAIN 

ZZZZIZZZZZZ^^ZZZ^^^^^^^ZZ^^ZZS^^^ZZIZIZ^Z^^^ZZZ 

By  E.  FflBENSON 

Author  of  "The  Challoneri,"  etc. 


A.  L.   BURT  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


COPYRIGHT,  1905 
BT  J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 


THE  ANGEL  OF  PAIN 


FIRST 


garden  lay  dozing  in  the  summer  sun,  a  sun, 
too,  that  was  really  hot  and  luminous,  worthy  of 
mid-June,  and  Philip  Home  had  paid  his  acknowl- 
edgments  to  its  power  by  twice  moving  his  chair 
into  the  shifting  shade  of  the  house,  which  stood  with  blinds 
drawn  down,  as  if  blinking  in  the  brightness.  Somewhere 
on  the  lawn  below  him,  but  hidden  by  the  flower-beds  of  the 
terraced  walk,  a  mowing-machine  was  making  its  clicking 
journeys  to  and  fro,  and  the  sound  of  it  seemed  to  him  to  be 
extraordinarily  consonant  to  the  still  heat  of  the  afternoon. 
Entirely  in  character  also  with  the  day  was  the  light  hot  wind 
that  stirred  fitfully  among  the  garden  beds  as  if  it  had  gone 
to  sleep  there,  and  now  and  then  turned  over  and  made  the 
flowers  rustle  and  sigh.  Huge  Oriental  poppies  drooped 
their  scarlet  heads,  late  wall-flowers  still  sent  forth  their  hot, 
homely  odour,  poenies  blazed  and  flaunted,  purple  irises 
rivalled  in  their  fading  glories  the  budding  stars  of  clematis 
that  swarmed  up  the  stone  vases  on  the  terrace,  golden  rain 
showered  from  the  laburnums,  lilacs  stood  thick  in  fragrant 
clumps  and  clusters,  Canterbury  bells  raised  spires  of  dry, 
crinkly  blue,  and  forget-me-nots — nearly  over — made  a  dim 
blue  border  to  the  glorious  carpet  of  the  beds.  For  the  warm 
weather  this  year  had  come  late  but  determinedly,  spring1 
flowers  still  lingered,  and  the  later  blossoms  of  early  summer 
had  been  forced  into  premature  appearance.  This  fact  occu- 
pied Philip  at  this  moment  quite  enormously.  What  would 
the  garden  be  like  in  July  ?  There  must  come  a  break  some- 
where, when  the  precious  summer  flowers  were  over,  and 
before  the  autumn  ones  began. 

5 


6  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

It  was  not  unreasonable  of  him  to  be  proud  of  his  garden, 
for  any  garden-lover  would  here  have  recognised  a  master- 
hand.  Below,  in  the  thick  clay  that  bordered  the  Thames, 
were  the  roses  kept  apart,  with  no  weed,  no  other  flower  to 
pilfer  their  rightful  monopoly  of  "  richness."  A  flight  of 
twelve  stone  steps  led  up  from  this  garden  to  the  tennis  lawn, 
a  sheet  of  velvet  turf,  unbordered  by  any  flowers  to  be 
trampled  by  ball-seekers,  or  to  be  respected  by  ball-losers. 
Above  again  where  he  sat  now  a  deep  herbaceous  border  ran 
round  three  sides  of  the  gravelled  space,  in  the  middle  of 
which  a  bronze  fountain  cast  water  over  Nereids  and 
aquatic  plants,  and  behind  him  rose  the  dozing  house,  sun- 
blinds  and  rambler  rose,  jasmine  and  red  bricks. 

Certainly  at  this  moment  Philip  was  more  than  content 
with  life,  a  very  rare  but  a  very  enviable  condition  of  affairs. 
The  lines  seemed  to  him  to  be  laid  not  in  pleasant  but  in 
ecstatic  places,  and  youth,  hard  work,  a  well-earned  holiday, 
keen  sensibilities,  and  being  in  love  combined  to  form  a  state 
of  mind  which  might  be  envied  by  the  happiest  man  God 
ever  made.  An  hour's  meditation  with  a  shut  book  which 
he  had  selected  at  random  from  the  volumes  on  the  drawing- 
room  table  had  convinced  him  of  this,  and  the  interruption 
that  now  came  to  his  solitary  thoughts  was  as  delightful  in 
its  own  way  as  the  thoughts  themselves. 

Mrs.  Home  did  everything  in  the  way  most  characteristic 
of  her,  and  if  a  Dresden  shepherdess  could  be  conceived  as 
sixty  years  old  she  might  possibly  rival  the  clean,  precise 
delicacy  of  Philip's  mother.  She  dressed  in  grey  and  Quak- 
erish colours,  but  of  an  exquisite  neatness,  and  her  clothes 
smelled  faintly  but  fragrantly  of  lavender  and  old-fashioned 
herbs.  Even  at  sixty  the  china-prettiness  of  her  face  gave 
her  pre-eminent  charm;  and  her  cheeks,  wrinkled  with  no 
sharp  lines  of  sudden  shock,  but  with  the  long  pleasant 
passage  of  time,  were  as  pink  and  soft  as  a  girl's.  Her  hair 
was  perfectly  white,  but  still  abundant,  and,  taken  up  in 
rather  old-fashioned  lines  above  her  temples  gave  a  round- 
ness and  youth  to  her  face  which  was  entirely  in  keeping 
with  her.  As  she  stepped  out  of  the  drawing-room  window 
she  put  up  her  parasol,  and  walked  quietly  over  the  gravel 
to  where  her  dark,  long-limbed  son  was  sitting. 

"  Darling,  would  it  not  be  wise  of  you  to  go  for  a  row  on 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  7 

the  river  ?"  she  said.  "  Your  holiday  is  so  short.  I  want 
you  to  make  the  best  of  it." 

Philip  turned  in  his  chair. 

"  Darling,  it  would  be  most  unwise,"  he  said.  "  The  best 
holiday  is  to  do  nothing  at  all.  People  are  so  stupid !  They 
think  that  if  your  brain,  or  what  does  duty  for  it,  is  tired, 
the  remedy  is  to  tire  your  body  also." 

"  But  a  little  walk,  perhaps,  Philip,"  said  she.  "  I  can 
explain  to  your  guests  when  they  come.  Do  you  know,  I 
am  rather  frightened  of  them.  That  extraordinary  Mr. 
Merivale,  for  instance.  Will  he  want  to  take  off  all  his 
clothes,  and  eat  cabbages?" 

Philip's  grave  face  slowly  relaxed  into  a  smile.  He  hardly 
ever  laughed,  but  his  smile  was  very  complete. 

"  I  shall  tell  him  you  said  that,"  he  remarked. 

Mrs.  Home  sat  down  with  quite  a  thump  at  the  horror  of 
the  thought. 

"  Dear  Philip,"  she  said,  "  you  mustn't — you  really 
mustn't." 

He  stretched  out  his  hand  to  her. 

"  Oh,  mother,"  he  said,  "  what  will  cure  you  of  being  so 
indiscreet  except  threats,  and  putting  those  threats  into  exe- 
cution if  necessary  ?  He  will  want  to  take  off  all  his  clothes, 
as  we  all  shall,  if  it  goes  on  being  so  hot.  Only  he  won't 
any  more  than  we  shall.  He  will  probably  be  extremely 
well-dressed.  No,  the  Hermit  is  only  the  Hermit  at  the 
Hermitage.  Even  there  he  doesn't  take  off  all  his  clothes, 
though  he  lives  an  outdoor  life.  You  never  quite  have  recog- 
nised what  a  remarkable  person  he  is." 

"  I  should  remark  him  anywhere,"  said  Mrs.  Home  in 
self-defence.  "And  what  age  is  he,  Philip?  Is  he  twenty, 
or  thirty,  or  what  ?" 

Philip  considered. 

"  He  must  be  a  year  or  two  older  than  me,"  he  said.  "  Yes, 
I  should  say  he  was  thirty-one.  But  it's  quite  true — he 
doesn't  look  any  age;  he  looks  ageless.  Entirely  the  result 
of  no  clothes  and  cabbages." 

"  They  always  seem  to  me  so  tasteless,"  remarked  Mrs. 
Home.  "  But  they  seem  to  suit  him." 

"  Dear  old  Hermit !"  said  Philip.  "  I  haven't  seen  him  for 
a  whole  year.  It  becomes  harder  and  harder  to  get  him 
away  from  his  beloved  forest." 


8  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  I  can  never  understand  what  he  does  with  himself,  year 
in,  year  out,  down  there,"  said  Mrs.  Home. 

"  He  thinks,"  said  Philip. 

"  I  should  call  that  doing  nothing,"  remarked  his  mother. 

"  I  know ;  there  is  that  view  of  it.  At  the  same  time,  it 
must  be  extremely  difficult  to  think  all  day.  I  have  been 
thinking  for  an  hour,  and  I  have  quite  finished.  I  should 
have  had  to  begin  to  read  if  you  hadn't  come  out.  And 
whom  else  are  you  frightened  of  out  of  all  these  terrible 
people  ?" 

Mrs.  Home  smoothed  her  grey  gown  a  little  nervously. 

"  I  am  frightened  of  Lady  Ellington,"  she  said.  "  She 
has  so  very  much — so  very  much  self-possession.  She  is  so 
practical,  too :  she  always  tells  me  all  sorts  of  ways  of  man- 
aging the  house,  and  suggests  all  kinds  of  improvements. 
It  is  very  kind  of  her,  and  she  is  always  quite  right.  And  I 
think  I  am  a  little  afraid  of  Madge." 

"  Ah,  I  can't  permit  that,"  said  Philip,  smiling  again. 

This  brought  their  talk  at  once  into  more  intimate  lands. 

"  Ah,  dear  Philip,"  she  said.  "  I  pray  God  that  it  may 
go  well  with  you !" 

Philip  sat  upright  in  his  chair,  and  the  book  fell  un- 
heeded to  the  ground. 

"  How  did  you  guess?"  he  said.  "  I  suspect  you  of  being 
a  witch,  mother;  and  if  we  had  lived  a  few  hundred  years 
ago,  instead  of  now,  it  would  have  been  my  painful  duty  to 
have  had  you  burned.  It  would  have  hurt  you  far  more 
than  me,  because  the  sense  of  duty  would  have  sustained  me. 
I  never  said  a  word  to  you  about  Madge,  yet  you  knew  I 
was  in  love  with  her,  I  think,  almost  before  I  knew  it 
myself." 

"  Yes,  dear.  I  am  sure  I  did,"  said  Mrs.  Home  with 
gentle  complacence. 

"  Well,  you  dear  witch,  tell  me  how  you  knew." 

"  Oh,  Philip,  it  was  easy  to  see.  You  never  looked  at  any 
girl  before  like  that.  I  used  to  be  afraid  you  would  never 
marry.  You  used  to  say  dreadful  things,  you  know,  that 
really  frightened  me.  Even  since  you  were  quite  a  little 
boy,  you  thought  women  were  a  bother.  You  used  to  say 
they  couldn't  play  games,  and  were  always  in  the  way,  and 
had  headaches,  and  were  without  any  sense  of  honour." 

"  All  quite  true  in  the  main,"  said  the  misogynous  Philip. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  9 

Mrs.  Home  held  up  her  hands  in  protest. 

"  Dear,  when  have  you  known  me  have  a  headache,  or  do 
anything  dishonourable?"  she  asked  pertinently. 

"  I  always  excepted  you.  And  I  except  Madge.  She  beat 
me  at  croquet  the  other  day,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  game 
volunteered  the  information  that  she  had  not  moved  the 
ball  she  croquetted." 

"  She  always  would,"  said  his  mother  gently.  "  Oh, 
Philip,  good  luck  to  your  wooing,  my  dear !" 

There  was  a  long  pause ;  a  sparrow  in  a  prodigious  bustle 
alighted  on  the  edge  of  the  fountain,  and  drank  as  if  it  had 
been  a  traveller  straight  from  Sahara ;  the  wind  woke  again 
in  the  flower-beds  and  gave  a  long,  fragrant  sigh ;  the  sun- 
blinds  of  the  drawing-room  stirred  as  it  wandered  by  them, 
and  the  pale  purple  petals  of  a  grape-bunch  cluster  of  wis- 
teria fell  on  the  crimson-striped  canvas.  The  exquisiteness 
of  this  midsummer  moment  struck  Philip  with  a  sudden  pang 
of  delight,  none  the  less  keen  because  the  love  with  which 
his  soul  was  full  was  not  yet  certain  or  complete :  the  pause 
before  completion  was  his. 

"  Thank  you,  mother,"  he  said  at  last.  "  I  shall  know 
very  soon,  I  shall  ask  her  while  she  is  here." 

He  got  up  as  he  spoke. 

"  I  can't  sit  still  any  more,"  he  said.  "  Speaking  of  it  has 
made  me  restless.  I  must  go  and  do  something  violent.  Per- 
haps I  will  take  your  advice  and  go  for  a  row.  They  will 
not  be  here  till  nearly  seven.  Oh,  by-the-way,  Evelyn  Dun- 
das  is  coming,  too.  You  will  have  someone  to  flirt  with, 
mother." 

"  Dear,  you  say  such  dreadful  things !"  said  Mrs.  Home. 
"  And  if  you  say  them  while  Lady  Ellington  is  here,  I  shall 
feel  so  awkward." 

"  Well,  Evelyn  proposed  to  elope  with  you  last  time  he 
was  here,"  said  Philip.  "  I  think  I  shall  commission  him  to 
paint  your  portrait." 

"  Who  wants  the  picture  of  an  old  woman  like  me  ?"  said 
Mrs.  Home.  "  But  get  him  to  do  Madge's." 

Philip  considered  this. 

"  That's  an  idea,"  he  said.  "  He  could  paint  her  divinely. 
Really,  mother — if  ah !  a  big  '  if.'  Do  you  know,  I'm  rather 
uneasy  about  Evelyn." 

"Why?    I  thought  he  was  getting  on  so  well." 


10  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  He  is  as  far  as  painting  goes.  They  think  very  highly 
of  him.  But  the  moment  he  gets  a  couple  of  hundred  pounds 
he  buys  a  motor-car  or  something,  and  next  week  his  watch 
is  in  pawn.  Now,  when  you  are  twenty-five,  it  is  time  to 
stop  doing  that." 

"  I  know,"  said  Mrs.  Home.  "  He  is  dreadful !  Last 
time  he  was  here  he  gave  me  a  pearl-brooch  that  must  have 
cost  him  fifty  pounds." 

"  That  was  to  induce  you  to  run  away  with  him,"  remarked 
Philip.  "  That  was  quite  understood,  and  I  think  you  be- 
haved rather  badly  in  not  doing  so." 

"  Philip,  you  mustn't !" 

"  No,  nor  must  you !  And  now  I'm  going  on  the  river. 
If  I  get  drowned  it  will  be  your  fault  for  having  suggested 
it." 

"  Ah,  do  be  careful  in  those  locks,"  said  Mrs.  Home.  "  I 
get  so  nervous  always  when  the  water  goes  down  and  down." 

"  There's  more  chance  of  getting  drowned  when  it  goes 
up  and  up,"  said  her  son,  kissing  her  on  the  forehead  as  he 
passed  her  chair. 

Philip  Home  at  the  age  of  thirty-one  was,  perhaps,  as 
successful  a  man  of  his  age  as  any  in  the  financial  world. 
His  father.,  the  head  of  one  of  the  big  South  African  houses, 
had  died  some  five  years  before,  and  since  then  the  burden 
of  a  very  large  and  prosperous  house  had  rested  almost  en- 
tirely on  his  shoulders,  which  physically  as  well  as  morally 
were  broad.  But  he  combined  in  an  extraordinary  degree 
the  dash  and  initiative  of  youth  with  a  cool-headedness  and 
sobriety  of  judgment  which,  in  general  is  not  achieved  until 
something  of  the  fire  of  the  other  is  lost,  and  his  manage- 
ment was  both  brilliant  and  safe.  Yet,  as  must  always 
happen,  the  habit  of  mind  necessary  to  the  successful  con- 
duct of  large  financial  interests,  which  among  other  ingredi- 
ents is  made  up  of  incessant  watchfulness  and  a  certain 
hardness  in  judging  and  acting,  had,  it  must  be  confessed, 
somewhat  tinged  his  whole  character,  and  the  world  in  gen- 
eral was  right  in  its  estimate  of  him  as  a  man  who  was 
rather  brusque  and  unsympathetic,  a  man  with  an  iron  hand 
who  did  not  always  even  remember  to  put  on  the  velvet 
glove.  This  was  a  perfectly  just  conclusion  as  far  as  the 
world  in  general,  that  is  to  say,  the  world  of  mere  acquaint- 
ances, was  concerned,  and  Philip's  fine  collection  of  prints 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  11 

was  considered  to  be  regarded  by  him  as  an  investment 
rather  than  a  joy.  They  made  the  same  judgment  about  his 
garden,  thinking  that  the  rarity  of  plants  was  a  quality  more 
highly-prized  by  him  than  their  beauty.  But  where  the 
world  in  general  did  him  an  injustice  was  that  they  did  not 
allow  for  a  circle  which,  though  small,  was  far  more  inti- 
mate and  vastly  more  competent  to  form  the  true  estimate 
of  the  man  than  they,  the  circle  of  friends.  These  were  four 
in  number — his  mother,  Madge  Ellington,  namely — and  the 
two  men  to  whom  allusion  has  already  been  made,  namely — 
the  Hermit  and  Evelyn  Dundas.  They  saw,  all  four  of  them, 
a  perfectly  different  Philip  to  him  who  somewhat  elbowed 
his  way  through  the  uninteresting  ranks  of  acquaintances, 
or  sat,  detached  from  the  real  essential  man,  in  his  orderly 
office,  harsh-faced,  unsmiling  and  absorbed.  And  this  essen- 
tial Philip  in  his  own  sanctum,  where  only  these  four  ever 
came,  was,  indeed,  a  very  lovable  and  eager  personage ;  and 
though  the  world  did  not  know  it,  his  prints  really  hung 
there,  and  in  the  windows  his  flowers  blossomed.  But  few 
were  admitted  there,  and  those  only  not  on  business. 

So  this  very  efficient  person,  if  we  rate  efficiency,  as  seems 
to  be  the  fashion,  by  the  amount  of  income-tax  annually 
harvested  by  the  State,  left  the  shade  of  the  house  and  his 
mother  sitting  there,  whistled  for  the  two  fox-terriers  that 
lay  dozing  in  the  shade  and  went  off  towards  the  river.  The 
smile  which  he  wore  when  in  his  sanctum  of  intimates  still 
lingered  on  his  face  as  he  passed  down  the  stone  steps  to  the 
croquet  lawn  below,  but  then  it  faded.  Nor  did  the  gardener 
who  was  mowing  the  lawn  smile. 

"  I  gave  orders  it  was  to  be  mown  yesterday  morning," 
(said  Philip ;  "and  it  is  only  half  done  yet.  Did  you  receive 
those  orders  or  not  ?" 

The  man,  a  huge  young  Hercules,  touched  his  cap. 

"  Yes,  sir ;   at  least ' 

"  There  is  no  'at  least,'  "  said  Philip.  "  If  you  can't  do  as 
you  are  told  you  will  have  to  go." 

And  he  whistled — that  Philip  who  was  a  parody  of  him- 
self— to  the  dogs,  and  went  on. 

But  before  he  had  got  down  to  the  river  the  official  Philip 
had  dispersed,  mistlike,  in  the  glorious  golden  blaze  of  the 
summer  afternoon,  and  the  man  his  mother  knew  (she  would 
scarcely,  indeed,  have  recognised  the  other)  had  taken  his 


12  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

place  again,  and  as  he  rowed  lazily  down  the  river  he  gave 
himself  up  to  mere  receptivity  of  the  full-blown  beauty  that 
was  shed  broadcast  on  sky  and  land  and  water.  The  spring 
had  long  been  backward  and  wet,  but  now  the  pitiless  rains 
of  April  bore  a  glorious  and  iridescent  fruit.  Brimful  ran 
the  stream  from  bank  to  bank,  one  sheet  of  untarnished  crys- 
tal, reflecting  the  luminous  turquoise  of  the  sky.  To  his 
right  stretched  meadows  all  golden  with  the  flowering  of  the 
buttercup ;  and  cattle,  knee-deep  in  the  feathery  foliage, 
grazed  contentedly,  or  stood  in  the  shallows  of  the  river  to 
drink,  breathing  out  long  soft  breaths  of  kine-fragrance. 
Between  the  fields  stood  elms,  stalwart  towers  of  innumera- 
ble leaf,  and  a  little  way  below  the  red  roofs  of  Pangbourne 
nestled  among  red  and  white  flowering  thorns.  One  such 
tree,  a  cascade  of  crimson  blossom,  grew  near  the  river 
brink,  and  Philip  paused  on  his  oars  a  moment  as  he  passed, 
for  the  sprays  of  colour  were  outlined  by  the  vivid  blue  of 
the  sky,  and  on  either  side  stretched  the  incredible  gold  of 
the  buttercups.  No  artist  dared  have  painted  that,  yet  how 
simple  and  how  triumphantly  successful !  To  the  left  the  sun 
was  just  sinking  beneath  the  high  lines  of  wooded  hills,  and 
already  the  tide  of  clear  warm  shadow  was  beginning  to  ad- 
vance across  the  stream.  In  the  woods  that  covered  the  hills 
every  shade  of  green,  from  the  pale  milkiness  of  young  beech 
to  the  dark  velvet  of  the  oak,  were  mingled  together,  and 
glowed  as  if  lit  from  within  with  the  flakes  of  sunlight  that 
filtered  through  the  leaves.  But  that  divine  restfulness  of 
various  green  was,  somehow  less  to  Philip's  mind  than  the 
shouting  colours  of  the  sunlit  fields.  For  the  tides  of  life, 
the  strong,  sweeping  currents  of  vitality,  of  love,  of  the  work 
•without  which  the  active  brain  grows  hungry  and  starves, 
were  dashing  in  headstrong  race  within  him,  and  rest  and 
tranquility  and  soft  brooding  over  what  has  been  seemed  to 
him  a  poor  substitute  for  the  eager  harvesting  of  youth. 
His  sickle  was  in  his  hand,  and  he  pressed  eagerly  forward 
through  the  ripening  corn  of  life  that  fell  in  swathes  to  his 
sweeping  strokes. 

The  little  party  who  were  assembling  at  his  house  that 
afternoon  were  to  stay  with  him  a  week  of  Whitsuntide. 
He  would,  he  expected,  be  probably  obliged  to  go  up  to  Lon- 
don for  the  inside  of  the  last  two  days  of  their  stay,  but  he 
had  managed — chiefly  by  means  of  working  some  sixteen 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  13 

hours  out  of  the  twenty-four  during  the  last  week — to  secure 
for  himself  five  days  of  complete  holiday.  Like  a  wise  man, 
he  had  refused  to  pepper  his  house  with  mere  acquaintances 
when  friends  were  there,  and  with  only  one  out  of  his  four 
guests  did  he,  like  his  mother,  not  feel  on  terms  of  intimacy. 
Her  presence,  however,  as  Madge's  mother,  was  a  matter  of 
necessity,  and  Philip  did  not  hide  from  himself  the  fact  that 
she  certainly  favoured  his  suit.  For  Lady  Ellington,  as  Mrs. 
Home  had  already  remarked,  was  a  very  practical  woman, 
and  it  seemed  to  her,  in  her  own  phrasing,  that  Madge  could 
scarcely  "  do  better."  Her  practical  sense,  it  may  be  re- 
marked, was  like  an  all-fitting  handle  with  a  smart  steel 
spring  which  grasped  whatever  was  presented  to  it  in  firm 
tentacles ;  and  the  proper  way  of  sweeping  carpets,  the  right 
board  wages  for  scullery-maids,  the  correct  lead  with  doubled 
no  trumps  at  bridge,  were  as  clearly  defined  in  her  mind  as 
the  desirability  of  wealth  in  sons'-in-law.  She  was,  it  may  be 
added,  extremely  generous  with  advice,  being  anxious  to  lay 
open  to  all  the  world  the  multifarious  discoveries  of  her 
master-mind. 

Lady  Ellington  was  certainly  a  very  handsome  woman, 
and  the  passage  of  the  glacier  of  years  over  her  face  and  her 
mind  had  produced  hardly  any  striations  either  on  the  one 
or  the  other.  Her  bodily  health  was  superb,  and  she  took 
the  utmost  care  of  it;  while,  since  one  of  her  most  con- 
stantly applied  maxims  was  to  let  no  sadness  or  worry  weigh 
on  her,  her  mind  had  by  this  time  become  something  like  a 
very  hard,  bright,  polished  globe  which  it  was  impossible  to 
dint  or  damage.  She  had  strolled  after  tea  with  her  hostess 
and  Madge  to  the  croquet  lawn,  leaving  Evelyn  Dundas  and 
Tom  Merivale  to  smoke  and  await  Philip's  return  from  the 
river.  The  gardener  there  was  still  engaged  in  his  belated 
mowing,  and  Lady  Ellington  examined  the  cutter  with  a 
magisterial  air. 

"  Very  old-fashioned  and  heavy,"  she  said.  "  You  should 
get  the  new  light  American  type.  It  does  far  more  work, 
and  a  boy  with  it  can  get  through  what  it  takes  a  man  to  do 
with  a  heavier  machine.  How  many  gardeners  do  you  keep, 
Mrs.  Home  " 

The  poor  lady  shook  her  head. 

"  I  don't  really  know,"  she  said.  "  How  many  are  there 
of  you,  Hawkins  ?" 


14 

Lady  Ellington  sniffed  rather  contemptuously. 

"  The  labour-sheet  will  tell  you,"  she  said.  "  Why  are 
there  no  flower  borders  on  this  lawn  ?" 

"  Ah,  that  is  Philip's  plan,"  said  his  mother,  delighted  to 
be  able  to  refer  the  inquisitor  to  another  source.  "  He  says 
that  they  get  so  trampled  by  people  looking  for  balls." 

"  I  should  have  thought  wire-netting  would  have  obviated 
that,"  said  Lady  Ellington.  "  Under  the  north  wall  there  is 
an  excellent  aspect.  Personally,  I  should  put  bulbs  here. 
And  the  rose  garden  is  below,  is  it  not?  Certainly  Mr.  Home 
keeps  his  garden  in  fairly  good  order." 

This  concession,  though  not  altogether  unqualified,  was 
fully  appreciated  by  Mrs.  Home. 

"  I'm  sure  he  spends  enough  on  it,"  she  said. 

Lady  Ellington  laughed. 

"  That  is  the  surest  way  of  getting  satisfactory  results," 
she  said.  "  It  is  all  nonsense  to  say  that  flowers  do  best  in 
the  gardens  of  those  that  love  them,  unless  that  love  takes 
the  practical  form  of  spending  money  on  them.  And  in  the 
latter  case,  they  do  equally  well  if  you  hate  them !" 

This  was  in  the  best  Ellingtonian  manner,  hard  and  clean- 
cut  and  glittering — there  was  nothing  foggy  about  it — and 
it  represented  very  fairly  Lady  Ellington's  method  of  deal- 
ing with  life.  Love  or  hatred  did  not  seem  to  her  to  matter 
very  particularly;  the  dinner  of  herbs,  at  any  rate,  in  the 
house  of  love  was  markedly  less  attractive  to  her  than  the 
well-ordered  house  of  hate,  and  she  could  do  without  friends 
better  than  without  a  motor-car.  She  had  had  rather  a  hard 
tussel  with  life,  and  shrewd  blows  had  been  given  on  both 
sides ;  she  had  lost  her  money  and  her  husband  during  the 
last  few  years,  and,  being  without  a  son,  the  title  and  estates 
had  gone  to  her  husband's  nephew,  a  man  for  whom  for 
years  she  had  felt,  and  indeed  shown,  an  extreme  dislike. 
Her  jointure  was  narrow,  and  she  had  only  got  her  motor- 
car by  the  simple  expedient  of  ordering  it  but  not  paying  for 
it.  But  of  the  two  combatants — life  and  herself — life  was  at 
last  beginning  to  get  the  worst  of  it.  Certain  speculations 
she  had  lately  indulged  in  had  brought  her  in  money,  and  if 
once  she  could  marrv  her  daughter  to  Philip,  she  felt  that 
this  would  be  a  knock-down  blow  to  life,  and  her  struggles 
on  this  side  of  the  grave  would  be  over.  What  might  hap- 
pen on  the  other  side  concerned  her  very  little. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  15 

Madge  meantime,  while  this  short  cross-examination  had 
been  going  on,  strolled  a  little  behind  the  other  two,  with  a 
faint  smile  of  amusement  jn  her  eyes.  She  had  inherited  all 
her  mother's  beauty,  and  dark  violet  eyes  glowed  beneath  her 
black  lashes.  Her  nose  was  a  little  tip-tilted,  as  if  raised  in 
curiosity  about  things  in  general,  but  her  mouth  somewhat 
contradicted  that,  for  it  drooped  a  little  at  the  corners,  as  if 
to  imply  that  her  curiosity  when  satisfied  proved  rather  dis- 
appointing. Curiosity  and  a  shade  of  contempt,  indeed,  were 
the  emotions  most  strongly  in  evidence  on  her  face,  and  the 
observer — allowing  that  features  may  represent  the  character 
of  their  owner  rather  than  that  of  her  ancestry — would  per- 
haps conclude  that  her  habitual  view  of  the  world  was  of 
the  kind  that  tends  to  laugh  at  rather  than  with  that  admira- 
ble comedy.  Otherwise  her  face  was  strangely  sexless ;  it 
was,  indeed,  more  the  face  of  a  boy  than  of  a  girl.  Even 
among  tall  women  she  was  tall,  and  by  her  side  Mrs.  Home 
looked  more  than  ever  like  a  figure  of  Dresden  china. 

Lady  Ellington  after  her  sympathetic  remark  about  flow- 
ers, turned  to  her  daughter. 

"Well  situated,  is  it  not,  Madge?"  she  said.  "And  the 
river  is  below  there.  You  will  be  all  day  on  it,  I  expect,  if 
Mr.  Home  is  kind  enough  to  take  you.  And  who  else  is 
here,  Mrs.  Home?" 

"  Ah,  there  is  no  party  at  all,  I  am  afraid,"  said  she. 
"  Philip  said  that  acquaintances  mix  so  badly  with  friends. 
Only  Mr.  Dundas  and  Mr.  Merivale." 

Lady  Ellington  thought  this  over  for  a  moment,  and  the 
conclusion  apparently  was  most  satisfactory. 

"  That  is  charming  of  him !"  she  said.  "  It  is  always  a 
compliment  to  be  asked  to  a  small  party;  whereas,  if  you 
have  a  houseful  it  doesn't  matter  who  is  there.  Dear  me, 
those  roses  should  be  cut  much  further  back,  if  they  are  to 
do  any  good.  But  it  is  quite  true ;  if  one  asks  friends  and 
acquaintances  together,  the  friends  always  wonder  why  the 
acquaintances  have  been  asked,  and  the  acquaintances  are 
disgusted  that  nobody  takes  any  notice  of  them.  And  I 
particularly  want  your  son's  advice  on  some  shares  I  have 
lately  purchased.  Mr.  Dundas,  too — I  am  so  glad  to  meet 
him.  They  say  his  portraits  are  going  up  in  price  so.  I 
wonder  if  he  could  be  induced — just  a  little  sketch Ah, 


16  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

there  is  Mr.  Home  coming  up  from  the  river.  I  wonder  why 
he  wears  a  dark  coat  on  so  hot  a  day  ?" 

A  little  curiosity  perhaps  lingered  in  Madge's  face  when 
she  met  Philip,  and  certainly  the  contempt  all  vanished.  She 
had  a  great  respect  and  liking  for  him,  and  her  whole  ex- 
pression brightened  when  she  saw  him.  Then  after  greet- 
ings they  strolled  on,  the  two  elder  ladies  in  front. 

"  Mother  has  a  great  many  questions  to  ask  you,"  she 
said  to  him  in  a  gentle,  slow,  but  very  audible  voice.  "  She 
wants  to  know  how  many  gardeners  you  have,  why  you 
don't  cut  your  roses  back  and  something  about  South 
African  mines." 

Philip's  habit  of  neatness  and  instinct  of  gardening  led 
him  to  stop  a  moment  and  nip  off  a  couple  of  ill-localised 
buds  from  a  rose.  In  effect  the  two  others  got  a  little 
further  ahead  of  them.  This  may  or  may  not  have  been 
intentional. 

"  All  my  information  is  at  her  service,"  he  said — "  par- 
ticularly on  the  subject  of  roses,  about  which  I  know  more 
than  South  African  mines." 

"  And  care  more !"  suggested  Madge. 

"  Infinitely  more.    Are  they  not  clearly  more  attractive  ?" 

Madge  looked  at  him  curiously. 

"  I  believe  you  really  think  so,"  she  said.  "  And  that  is 
so  odd.  Doesn't  the  scheming,  the  calculation,  the  fore- 
sight required  in  financial  things  interest  you  enormously?" 

"  Certainly ;  but  I  scheme  just  as  much  over  the  roses. 
Whether  this  one  is  to  have — well,  a  whisky-and-soda,  or 
whether  it  is  rheumatic  and  wants  a  lowering  treatment; 
that  is  just  as  interesting  in  itself  as  whether  South  Africans 
want  lowering  or  screwing  up." 

"  You  mean  you  can  do  that  ?  You  can  send  things  up 
or  down  ?  You  can  say  to  us,  to  mother :  '  You  shall  be 
poorer  to-morrow  or  richer'  ?" 

Philip  laughed. 

"  I  suppose  so,  to  some  extent.  Pray  don't  let  us  talk 
about  it.  It  sounds  rather  brutal,  and  I  am  afraid  it  is 
brutalising.  Yet,  after  all,  a  landlord  may  put  up  the  rent 
of  his  houses." 

Madge  Ellington  walked  on  for  a  few  paces  without 
replying. 

"  How  odd  of  you,"  she  said  at  length,  "  not  to  feel  the 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  17 

fascination  of  power.  I  don't  mean  to  say  that  one  would 
necessarily  want  to  use  it,  but  it  must  be  so  divine  to  know 
it  is  there.  Well,  if  you  wish,  I  won't  talk  about  it." 

Philip  turned  to  her,  his  brown  thin  face  looking  sud- 
denly eager. 

"  Ah,  I  would  sooner  hear  you  talk  about  what  you  please 
than  about  what  I  please,"  he  said. 

She  laughed. 

"  Can't  I  manage  to  combine  the  two  ?"  she  said.  "  The 
river,  for  instance,  I  think  we  both  love  that.  Will  you 
promise  to  let  me  live  on  the  river  while  I  am  here  ?" 

"  I  warn  you  that  you  will  have  a  good  deal  of  my  com- 
pany, then,"  said  he. 

She  laughed  again. 

"  But  as  you  are  my  host  I  can't  decently  object,"  she 
said.  "Oh,  tell  me,  Mr.  Home,  what  is  Mr.  Dundas  like? 
You  are  a  great  friend  of  his,  are  you  not?  He  was  at  tea, 
and  asked  a  series  of  the  silliest  riddles,  which  somehow 
made  me  giggle.  Giggle  hopelessly,  do  you  understand ;  they 
were  so  stupid.  And  he  is  the  Mr.  Dundas,  who  paints 
everybody  as  if  they  were  so  much  more  interesting  than 
they  are?" 

"  Yes,  evidently  the  same,"  said  Philip.  "  And  what  you 
say  is  quite  true.  Yet,  again,  as  you  say,  his  conversation 
is  futile  beyond  words." 

Madge  walked  on  again  in  silence  a  little. 

"  I  think  that  combination  is  rather  charming,"  she  said. 
"  People  don't  laugh  enough,  and  certainly  he  makes  one 
laugh.  I  wish  I  laughed  more,  for  instance." 

"  And  has  Merivale  come  ?"  asked  Philip. 

"  Yes ;  he  was  at  tea,  too.    What  does  he  do  ?" 

"  He  doesn't  do  anything.    He  just  thinks." 

"  Good  heavens !  how  frightfully  fatiguing.  All  the  time, 
do  you  mean?" 

"  Yes,  all  the  time.  Have  you  never  met  him  before  ? 
Yet,  how  should  you?  He  lives  in  the  New  Forest,  and 
communes  with  birds  and  animals.  People  think  he  is  mad, 
but  he  is  the  sanest  person  I  know." 

"Why?"  asked  she. 

"  Because  he  has  had  the  wit  to  find  out  what  he  likes, 
and  to  do  it  all  the  time." 

"  And  what  is  that  ?"  asked  the  girl. 


18  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  He  sits  by  a  stream  and  looks  at  the  water.  Then  he 
lies  on  his  back  and  looks  at  the  sky.  Then  he  whistles, 
chuckles,  what  you  please  to  call  it,  and  the  thrushes  come 
scudding  out  of  the  bushes  and  chuckle  back  at  him." 

"  Is  that  not  rather  uncanny  ?"  asked  Madge. 

"  Most  uncanny.  Some  day,  as  I  tell  him,  he  will  see 
Pan.  And  I  shall  then  have  to  attend  a  funeral." 

The  girl's  eyebrows  wrinkled  into  a  frown. 

"  Pan?"  she  said. 

"  Yes ;  he  is  the  God  of  '  Go  as  you  please !'  And  his 
temple  is  a  lunatic  asylum.  But  don't  be  alarmed.  The 
Hermit  won't  go  into  a  lunatic  asylum  yet  awhile." 

"The  Hermit?" 

"  Yes,  the  Hermit  is  Merivale.  Because  he  lives  quite 
alone  in  the  New  Forest.  He  never  reads,  he  hardly  ever 
sees  anybody,  he  never  does  anything.  He  used  to  write  at 
one  time." 

Madge  shivered  slightly. 

"  How  intensely  uncomfortable !"  she  said.  "  I  think  I 
shall  like  Mr.  Dundas  best." 

"  You  are  sure  to  like  him." 

"  Because  everybody  does  ?  That  is  the  worst  of  reasons. 
I  always  distrust  very  popular  people." 

"  The  judgment  of  the  world  is  usually  wrong,  you  mean. 
But  occasionally  one  stumbles  on  an  exception." 

The  four  had  turned  back  towards  the  house,  and  as 
Philip  spoke,  he  and  his  companion  gained  the  top  step  of 
the  gravelled  square  bordered  by  flower-beds,  where  he  had 
sat  two  hours  ago  with  his  mother.  The  shadow  of  the 
house  had  swung  over  it,  and  in  the  gathering  dusk  the 
flower-beds  glowed  with  a  dim  subaqueous  radiance.  Philip's 
mother  and  Lady  Ellington  had  already  passed  into  the  open 
French  window  of  the  drawing-room,  but  on  the  stout 
balustrade  of  the  terrace  there  sat  a  young  man.  One  long 
slim  leg  rested  on  the  gravel,  the  other  was  crooked  round 
the  lead  vase  at  the  head  of  the  steps.  His  face,  extraordi- 
narily boyish,  was  clean-shaven,  or  rather  so  boyish  was  it, 
that  it  looked  as  if  it  was  still  untouched  by  razor.  He  held  a 
cigarette  in  one  hand,  and  the  other,  long-fingered  and  white 
as  a  woman's,  grasped  his  knee. 

"Oh,  Philip!"  he  cried;  "how  are  you?  Oddly  enough, 
I  am  quite  well.  I  always  was,  like  Sydney  Smith  and  his 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  19 

great  coat.  Isn't  there  time  for  a  game  of  croquet  before 
dinner.  Let's  all  be  late,  and  so  we  shall  all  be  punctual ;  it 
is  only  a  question  of  degree.  Miss  Ellington,  do  come  and 
play.  Why  did  the  barmaid  champagne,  and — oh,  I  asked 
you  that.  Stout,  porter  is  rather  good  though.  I  do  believe 
you  know  it,  Philip." 


SECOND 


MERIVALE  did  not,  as  Mrs.  Home  had 
feared  he  might,  appear  without  clothes  at  dinner, 
nor  did  he  make  clamorous  demands  for  cabbage. 
It  is  true  that  he  ate  no  meat  of  any  kind,  but  he 
was  not  of  the  preaching  sort  of  vegetarians,  and  did  not 
call  attention  to  his  abstinence.  Instead,  he  and  Evelyn 
Dundas  between  them  managed  to  turn  the  meal  into  a 
ridiculous  piece  of  gaiety  by  sheer  exuberance  of  animal 
spirits,  and  even  Lady  Ellington  forgot  to  examine  the 
dishes  with  her  usual  magisterial  air,  and  really  ate  and 
drank  without  criticising. 

There  was  an  extraordinary  superficial  resemblance  in 
certain  ways  between  the  two  men.  Both,  at  any  rate,  were 
glorious  examples  of  the  happiness  that  springs  from  health, 
a  happiness  which  is  as  inimitable  as  it  is  contagious.  By 
health,  it  must  be  premised,  is  not  meant  the  mere  absence 
of  definite  ailments,  but  that  perfect  poise  between  an  active 
mind  and  an  exuberant  body  which  is  so  rare. 

It  was  on  this  very  subject  that  Merivale  was  speaking 
now. 

"  Ah,  no,  Lady  Ellington,"  he  was  saying,  "  to  be  able  to 
get  through  the  day's  work,  day  after  day  and  year  after 
year,  is  not  health.  Perfect  health  implies  practically  per- 
fect happiness." 

"  But  how  if  you  have  a  definite  cause  of  worry?"  she 
said. 

"  You  can't  worry  when  you  are  well.  One  knows,  for 
example,  that  if  one  is  definitely  unwell,  the  same  cause 
produces  greater  worry  and  discomfort  than  if  one  is  not. 
And  my  theory  is,  that  if  one  is  absolutely  well,  if  your  mind 
and  soul,  that  is  to  say,  as  well  as  your  body,  are  all  in 
accord  with  each  other  and  with  their  environment,  worry 
is  impossible." 

Lady   Ellington,   to   do   her   justice,   always   listened  to 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  21 

things  that  were  really  new  to  her.  She  always  assumed, 
by  the  way,  that  they  were  not. 

"  My  theory  exactly,"  she  said.  "  I  could  scarcely  have 
lived  through  these  last  years  unless  I  had  made  up  my 
mind  never  to  let  any  anxiety  take  hold  of  me." 

Evelyn  Dundas  laughed.  Dinner  was  nearing  its  end  and 
conversation  was  general. 

"  My  mind  and  my  body  are  not  in  absolute  accord  this 
moment,"  he  said,  "  and  I  am  rather  anxious.  My  body 
demands  some  more  ice-pudding ;  my  mind  tells  me  it  would 
be  extremely  unwise.  Which  am  I  to  listen  to,  Tom?" 

"  Give  Mr.  Dundas  some  more  ice-pudding,"  remarked 
Philip  to  a  footman. 

"  The  laws  of  hospitality  compel  me  to  fall  in  with  my 
host's  suggestions,"  said  Evelyn.  "  Tom,  where  you  are 
wrong  lies  in  thinking  that  it  is  worth  while  spending  all 
your  time  in  keeping  well.  He  lives  in  the  New  Forest, 
Lady  Ellington,  and  if  when  you  are  passing  you  hear  the 
puffs  of  a  loud  steam-engine  somewhere  near  Brockenhurst 
you  will  know  it  is  Tom  doing  deep  breathing.  He  expects 
in  time  to  become  a  Ram-jam  or  something,  by  breathing 
himself  into  Raj-pan-puta." 

Tom  Merivale  laughed. 

"  No,  I  don't  want  to  become  a  Ram-jam,"  he  said,  "  what- 
ever that  may  be.  I  want  to  become  myself." 

"  No  clothes,"  murmured  Mrs.  Home. 

"  Become  yourself?"  asked  Lady  Ellington. 

"  Yes,  most  of  us  are  stunted  copies  of  our  real  selves," 
he  said.  "  Imitations  of  what  we  might  be.  And  what 
might  one  not  be?" 

The  talk  had  got  for  him,  at  any  rate,  suddenly  serious, 
and  he  looked  up  at  Lady  Ellington  with  a  sparkling  eye. 

"  Explain,"  she  said. 

"  Well,  it  seems  to  me  one  cripples  oneself  in  so  many 
ways.  .One  allows  oneself  to  be  nervous,  and  to  be  angry, 
and  to  be  bound  by  conventions  that  are  useless  and  cramp- 
ing." 

'Tall  hats,  frock-coats?"  asked  she. 

"  No,  certainly  not,  because  they,  at  any  rate,  are  perfectly 
harmless.  But,  to  take  an  example  of  what  I  mean,  it  seems 
to  me  a  ridiculous  convention  that  we  should  all  consider 
ourselves  obliged  to  know  what  is  going  on  in  the  world. 


22  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

It  does  not  really  do  one  any  good  to  know  that  there  is  war 
between  China  and  Japan.  What  does  do  us  good  is  not 
to  be  ill-tempered,  and  never  to  be  sad.  Sadness  and  pessi- 
mism are  the  worst  forms  of  mental  disease  I  know.  And 
the  state  will  not  put  sad  and  pessimistic  people  in  asylums, 
or  isolate  them  at  any  rate  so  that  their  disease  should  not 
spread.  Such  diseases  are  so  frightfully  catching,  and  they 
are  more  fatal  than  fevers.  People  die  of  them,  soul  and 
body !" 

Lady  Ellington  felt  that  Mrs.  Home  was  collecting  her 
eye,  and  rose. 

"  What  a  fascinating  theory,"  she  said.  "  Just  what  I 
have  always  thought.  Ah,  I  have  caught  my  dress  under 
my  chair.  You  should  have  castors,  Mr.  Home,  on  your 

dining-room  chairs." 

******* 

Evelyn  moved  up  next  to  Tom  Merivale  after  the  others 
had  left  them. 

"  Dear  old  Hermit !"  he  said.  "  Now,  you've  got  to  give 
an  account  of  yourself.  Neither  Phil  nor  I  have  seen  you 
for  a  year.  What  have  you  been  doing?" 

Tom  let  the  port  pass  him. 

"  I  suppose  you  would  call  it  nothing,"  said  he. 

"  Ah,  but  in  real  life  people  don't  go  and  live  in  the  New 
Forest  and  do  nothing.  What  have  you  written  in  the  last 
year?" 

"  Not  one  line.  Seriously,  I  have  been  doing  nothing 
except  a  little  gardening  and  carpentering;  just  manual 
labour  to  keep  one  sane." 

"  Well,  it  looks  as  if  it  suited  you.  You  look  well  enough, 
and  what  is  so  odd,  you  look  so  much  younger." 

Tom  laughed  again. 

"Ah,  that  strikes  you,  does  it?"  he  said.  "I  suppose  it 
could  not  have  been  otherwise,  though  that  wasn't  my  object 
in  going  to  live  there." 

"  Well,  tell  us,  then !"  said  Evelyn,  rather  impatiently. 
He  had  begun  to  smoke,  and  smoked  in  a  most  characteristic 
manner ;  that  is  to  say,  that  in  little  more  than  a  minute  his 
cigarette  was  consumed  down  one  side,  and  was  a  peninsula 
of  charred  paper  down  the  other,  while  clouds  of  smoke 
ascended  from  it.  Perceiving  this,  he  instantly  lit  another 
one. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  23 

But  Philip  rose. 

"Tell  us  afterwards,  Tom,"  he  said.  "Lady  Ellington 
likes  to  play  bridge,  I  know,  as  soon  as  dinner  is  over." 

Evelyn  rose  also. 

"  Ah,  she  is  like  me,"  he  said.  "  She  wants  to  do  things 
not  soon,  but  immediately,  Philip,  how  awfully  pretty  Miss 
Ellington  is.  Why  wasn't  I  told?  I  should  like  to  paint 
her.'^ 

Philip  paused  by  the  door. 

"  Really,  do  you  mean  that  ?"  he  said.  "  And  have  you  got 
time  ?  I  hear  you  always  have  more  orders  than  you  can  ever 
get  through." 

Evelyn  tossed  his  head  with  a  quick,  petulant  gesture. 

"  You  talk  as  if  I  was  a  tailor,"  he  said.  "  But  you  sug- 
gest to  me  the  advisability  of  my  getting  apprentices  to  paint 
the  uninteresting  people  for  me,  and  I  will  sign  them.  That 
would  satisfy  a  lot  of  them.  Yes,  I  have  more  than  I  can  do. 
But  I  could  do  Miss  Ellington  remarkably  well.  Shall  I  ask 
her  to  sit  for  me  ?" 

"  That  would  be  rather  original,  the  first  time  vou  saw 
her." 

"  A  good  reason  for  doing  it,"  said  Evelyn,  hastily  drink- 
ing another  glass  of  port. 

"  But  it  would  certainly  give  her  a  good  reason  for  saying 
'  No,'  "  remarked  Philip. 

Madge,  it  appeared,  did  not  play  bridge:  her  mother,  at 
any  rate,  said  she  did  not,  and  Evelyn  Dundas,  rather  to  his 
satisfaction,  cut  out.  That  feat  happily  accomplished,  he 
addressed  himself  to  Madge. 

"  Fancy  a  hermit  playing  bridge !"  he  said.  "  Does  it  not 
seem  to  you  very  inconsistent?  Patience  is  the  furthest  he 
has  any  right  to  go." 

Madge  got  up. 

"  Patience,  both  in  cards  and  in  real  life,  seems  to  me  a 
very  poor  affair,"  she  said.  "  How  are  we  going  to  amuse 
ourselves  while  they  play?  Will  you  go  out  of  the  room 
while  I  think  of  something,  and  then  you  can  come  in  and 
guess  it  ?" 

An  amendment  occurred  to  Evelyn. 

"  We  might  both  go  out,"  he  said.  "  It  is  deliciously 
warm ;  just  out  on  to  the  terrace." 


24  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  And  when  we  come  in  they  can  guess  where  we  have 
been,"  said  Madge. 

The  night,  as  he  had  said,  was  deliciously  warm,  and  the 
moon,  a  day  or  two  only  from  full,  shone  with  a  very  clear 
light.  Below  them  lay  the  dim,  huddled  woods,  and  beyond, 
shining  like  a  streak  of  silver,  slept  the  Thames.  Some- 
where far  away  a  train  was  panting  along  its  iron  road,  and 
to  the  left  scattered  lights  showed  where  Pangbourne  stood. 
Odours  of  flowers  were  wafted  from  the  beds,  and  pale- 
winged  moths  now  and  then  crossed  the  illuminated  spaces 
of  light  thrown  by  the  drawing-room  window  on  to  the 
gravel. 

"  Ah,  what  a  pity  to  be  indoors !"  said  the  girl  as  they 
stepped  out.  "  I  suppose  I  must  be  of  Gipsy  blood ;  I 
always  want  to  go  somewhere." 

"  Where  particularly  ?"  asked  he. 

"  That  doesn't  matter ;  the  going  is  the  point.  If  you 
asked  me  to  go  to  the  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta  I  should  prob- 
ably say  '  Yes.'  What  a  pity  we  can't  go  on  the  river !" 

"  Ah,  let  us  do  that !"  said  he. 

Madge  laughed. 

"  It  would  be  quite  unheard-of,"  she  said.  "  I  don't  live 
in  the  New  Forest  like  Mr.  Merivale,  and  cast  conventions 
aside.  No,  we  will  walk  up  and  down  a  little,  and  then  you 
shall  go  and  play.  Do  you  know,  I  am  really  so  pleased  to 
have  met  you  I  have  admired  your  pictures  so.  Do  you  find 
it  a  bore  having  that  sort  of  thing  said  to  you  ?" 

Evelyn  thought  over  this  for  a  moment. 

"  Well,  I  think  my  pictures  bore  me  when  they  are  done," 
he  said,  "  though  the  opinion  of  other  people  never  does.  A 
picture  is — is  like  a  cold  in  the  head.  It  possesses  you  while 
it  is  there,  and  you  have  to  throw  it  off.  And  when  it  is 
thrown  off,  one  never  thinks  of  it  again.  At  least,  I  don't." 

They  had  come  to  the  end  of  the  terrace,  and  the  girl 
stopped  as  they  turned. 

"  And  then  you  do  another.  Ah,  how  delightful  to  know 
that  probably  to  the  end  of  your  life  you  will  have  things 
to  do !" 

"  I  don't  think  you  would  say  that  if  you  had  to  do  them," 
said  he.  "  Yet,  I  don't  know.  Of  course  creating  a  thing  is 
the  biggest  fun  in  the  world.  But  how  one  tears  one's  hair 
over  it!" 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  25 

Madge  looked  at  his  thick  black  thatch. 

"  You  seem  to  have  got  some  left,"  she  remarked. 

"  Yes,  but  I'm  looking  thinner.  Mrs.  Home  told  me  so. 
Oh,  look  at  the  moon !  What  a  dreadful  thing  to  say,  too ! 
But  it  really  is  out  of  drawing — it  is  far  too  big !" 

"  Perhaps  we  are  far  too  small,"  said  she. 

Evelyn  shook  his  head. 

"  It  is  impossible  to  be  small  if  that  occurs  to  you,"  he 
said. 

They  walked  in  silence  after  this  for  a  dozen  yards  or  so, 
Madge  feeling,  somehow,  strangely  attracted  by  her  com- 
panion. There  was  nothing,  it  is  true,  particularly  brilliant 
about  his  conversation ;  it  was  boyish  rather  than  brilliant ; 
but  she  felt,  as  most  people  did,  that  she  was  in  the  presence 
of  a  personality  that  was  rather  unusual.  And  this  person- 
ality seemed  to  her  to  be  very  faithfully  expressed  in  his 
pictures ;  there  was  something  daringly  simple  about  both 
him  and  them.  He  evidently  said  whatever  came  into  his 
head,  and  her  experience  was  that  so  many  people  only  talked 
about  such  things  as  were  supposed  to  be  of  interest.  Also, 
in  spite  of  this  moonlight  solitude,  he  evinced  not  the  small- 
est tendency  to  notice  the  fact  that  she  was  a  very  good- 
looking  girl ;  no  hint  of  it  appeared  in  his  talk  or  his  attitude 
to  her.  There  was  not  the  very  slightest  suspicion  of  that 
even  in  his  desire  to  go  on  the  river  with  her.  That  ridic- 
ulous suggestion  she  felt,  with  unerring  instinct,  had  been 
made  simply  from  comrade  to  comrade ;  there  were  two  of 
them  together,  cut  out  from  a  table  of  bridge,  and  he  had 
proposed  it  just  as  he  might  have  proposed  it  to  a  man, 
instead  of  a  girl,  of  his  own  age.  And  to  Madge  this  was 
something  of  an  exception  in  her  experience  of  the  other 
sex,  for  most  unmarried  men  of  her  acquaintance  had  shown 
a  tendency  towards  tenderness.  Her  beauty  made  it  perhaps 
excusable  in  them,  but  she  found  it  rather  trying.  It  was 
a  relief,  at  any  rate,  to  find  a  young  man  who  took  her 
frankly,  who  could  say  "  Look  at  the  moon,"  only  to  point 
out  that  it  was  out  of  drawing.  For  in  the  matter  of  emo- 
tion Madge  was  strangely  unfeeling,  or,  at  any  rate,  strange- 
ly undeveloped  ;  and  if  her  mother  had  let  any  anxiety  dwell 
upon  her  hard  and  polished  mind,  the  doubts  about  Madge's 
future  would,  perhaps,  have  pressed  as  heavily  there  as  any. 
As  a  good  mother  should,  she  had  brought  to  her  daughter's 


26  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

notice,  not  to  say  thrown  at  her  head,  a  large  variety  of 
young  men,  to  none  of  whom  had  Madge  responded  at  all 
satisfactorily.  And  it  was  almost  intensely  pleasing  to  her 
at  this  moment  to  find  someone  matrimonially  quite  impossi- 
ble to  her  mother's  mind,  who  was  both  so  attractive  to  her 
personally,  and  who  did  not  show  the  smallest  desire  to  treat 
her  otherwise  than  a  man  should  treat  a  man.  He  was  per- 
fectly natural,  in  fact,  perfectly  simple,  and  quite  an  excep- 
tion to  her  experience  of  moonlight  walkers.  And  this  para- 
gon continued  his  peerless  way. 

"  Have  you  met  Tom  Merivale  before  ?"  he  asked.  "  No  ? 
Of  course  he  would  think  it  almost  profane  to  say  the  moon 
was  too  large.  He  takes  any  fact  in  nature  and  then  pro- 
ceeds to  fit  himself  to  it.  Whatever  untutored  nature  does 
is  right,  in  his  view.  I  wonder  what  he  would  make  of  slugs 
eating  the  faces  of  pansies  slowly  awav.  I  shall  ask  him." 

Madge  gave  a  little  shriek  of  horror. 

"  That  is  one  of  the  facts  of  life  which  I  can't  get  over," 
she  said.  "  I  can't  reconcile  myself  to  wanton  destruction  of 
beauty.  Oh,  there  is  so  little  in  the  world." 

Now,  there  is  a  particular  mental  sensation  which  corre- 
sponds to  the  physical  sensation  of  stepping  up  a  step  when 
there  is  no  step  there.  Evelyn  felt  this  now. 

She  had  gone  suddenly  into  vacancy,  with  a  thump. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?"  he  said.  "  I  should  have  thought 
there  was  so  much  there  that  one  was  bewildered.  Surely 
almost  everything  is  beautiful.  " 

"  Do  you  really  think  that?"  she  asked. 

"  Why,  of  course.  But  the  trouble  is  that  one  has  not  wits 
enough  to  see  it.  And  all  beauty  is  equal — woman,  man, 
mountain-side,  pansy.  And  probably  slug,"  he  added. 
"  But  to  appreciate  that  would  require  a  great  deal  of  in- 
sight. But  Sir  John  Lubbock  says  that  earwigs  are  excellent 
mothers.  That  opened  my  eyes  to  earwigs." 

Again  Madge  walked  on  in  silence  for  a  space. 

"  Are  you  ever  bored  ?"  she  asked  at  length. 

"  Bored  ?  No.  All  that  anyone  has  ever  made  is  at  one's 
disposal  to  wonder  at.  And  if  one  can't  do  that,  one  can  go 
and  make  something  oneself.  No,  I  hope  I  shall  have  the 
grace  to  commit  suicide  before  I  am  bored." 

Madge  stopped  and  turned  to  him.    That  she  was  being 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  27 

unwise  she  knew,  but  something  intimate  and  indwelling  dic- 
tated to  her. 

"  I  am  bored  every  day  of  my  life !"  she  said.  "  And  how 
can  I  avoid  it  ?  Is  it  very  stupid  of  me  ?" 

Evelyn  did  not  hesitate  in  his  reply. 

"  Yes,  very !"  he  said.  "  Because  it  is  such  a  waste  of  time 
to  be  bored.  People  don't  recollect  that." 

They  had  come  opposite  the  drawing-room  window,  and 
as  they  passed  Lady  Ellington  stepped  out  on  to  the  terrace. 

"  Is  that  you,  Madge?"  she  asked. 

Even  in  the  darkness  Evelyn  knew  what  had  happened  to 
Madge's  face.  The  fall  of  it  was  reflected  in  her  voice. 

"  Yes ;  have  you  finished  your  bridge  ?"  she  asked. 

"  We  are  waiting  for  Mr.  — Mr.  Dundas  to  cut  in,"  she 
said.  "  Mr.  Home  thought  he  was  in  the  smoking-room, 
and  has  gone  there." 

"  Oh,  I  am  not  in  the  smoking-room,"  said  Evelyn. 

If  one  judged  by  definitions  given  in  dictionaries  it  would 
probably  be  a  misuse  of  language  to  say  that  Lady  Ellington 
"  played"  bridge.  Cards  were  dealt  her,  and  she  dealt  with 
them,  embarking  on  commercial  transactions.  She  assessed 
the  value  of  her  hand  with  far  more  accuracy  than  she  had 
ever  brought  to  play  on  the  assessment  of  her  income-tax, 
and  proceeded  to  deal  with  her  asset^  with  even  more  acute- 
ness  than  she  was  accustomed  to  dispose  on  the  expenditure 
of  her  income.  Mrs.  Home  had  silently  entreated  Philip  to 
allow  her  to  cut  out,  and  Lady  Ellington  was  left  to  play  with 
three  men.  This  she  always  enjoyed,  because  she  took  full 
advantage  of  the  slight  concessions  which  were  allowed  to 
her  sex  if  no  other  wroman  was  of  the  table.  But  before  em- 
barking on  the  second  rubber  she  turned  to  Madge. 

"  I  want  to  speak  to  you,  dearest,"  she  said,  "  before  you 
go  to  bed.  We  shall  only  play  a  couple  more  rubbers.  Mr. 
Home,  you  really  ought  to  have  pneumatic  cards ;  they  are  a 
little  more  expensive,  but  last  so  much  longer — yes,  two 
more  rubbers — I  go  no  trumps — and  I  will  come  to  your 
room  on  my  way  up.  No  doubling?  Thank  you,  partner; 
that  is  the  suit  I  wanted." 

Philip,  who  was  her  partner,  had  exposed  two  excellent 
suits,  so  the  imagination  of  the  others  might  run  riot  over 
which  particular  suit  was  the  desire  of  Lady  Ellington.  At 
any  rate  she  scored  a  little  slam,  but  was  not  satisfied,  and 


28  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

turned  on  Evelyn,  who,  it  is  idle  to  remark,  had  talked  dur- 
ing the  play. 

"  I  missed  a  nine,"  she  said.  "  Mr.  Dundas  was  saying 
something  very  amusing." 

But  as  her  face  had  been  like  flint,  Mr.  Dundas  had  to- 
draw  the  inference  that,  however  amusing,  she  had  not  been 
amused. 

Lady  Ellington  always  kept  the  score  herself,  and  never 
showed  any  signs  of  moving,  if  she  had  won,  until  accounts 
had  been  adjusted  and  paid.  To-night  affairs  had  gone 
prosperously  for  her ;  she  was  gracious  in  her  "  good- 
nights,"  and  even  commended  the  admirable  temperature  of 
the  hot  water,  a  glass  of  which  she  always  sipped  before 
going  to  bed.  Madge  had  gone  upstairs,  but  not  long  before ; 
and  her  mother,  having  locked  her  winnings  into  her  dress- 
ing-case, came  to  her  room  and  found  her  sitting  by  the  open 
window,  still  not  yet  preparing  to  go  to  bed. 

"  Do  I  understand  that  you  walked  on  the  terrace  alone 
with  Mr.  Dundas  ?"  she  asked  in  a  peculiarly  chilly  voice. 

Madge  showed  no  surprise;  she  had  known  what  was 
coming. 

"  Yes,  we  took  a  turn  or  two,"  she  said. 

Her  mother  sat  down ;  Madge  had  not  turned  from  the 
window  and  was  still  looking  out. 

"  Kindly  attend,  Madge,"  she  said.  "  It  was  very  indis- 
creet, and  you  know  it.  I  don't  think  Mr.  Home  liked  it." 

Of  the  girl  who  had  talked  so  eagerly  and  naturally  to 
Evelyn  on  the  terrace  there  was  hardly  a  trace ;  Madge's  face 
had  grown  nearly  as  hard  as  her  mother's. 

"  I  am  not  bound  just  yet  to  do  all  Mr.  Home  likes,"  she 
said. 

"  You  are  bound,  if  you  are  a  sensible  creature,  at  all 
events  not  to  run  any  risks,  especially  now." 

Madge  turned  away  from  the  window. 

"  You  mean  until  the  bargain  is  completed.  Supposing  I 
refuse?"  she  said,  and  there  was  a  little  tremor  in  her  voice, 
partly  of  contempt,  partly  of  fear. 

Lady  Ellington,  as  has  been  remarked,  never  let  her  emo- 
tions, however  justifiable,  run  away  with  her;  she  never, 
above  all,  got  hot  or  angry.  Causes  which  in  others  would 
produce  anger,  produced  in  her  only  an  additional  coldness 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  29 

and  dryness,  which  Madge  was,  somehow,  afraid  of  with 
unreasoning  nightmare  kind  of  fear. 

"  I  will  not  suppose  anything  so  absurd  !"  said  her  mother. 
"  You  are  twenty-five  years  old,  and  you  have  never  yet 
fallen  in  love  at  all.  But  as  I  have  pointed  out  to  you 
before,  you  will  be  far  happier  married  than  living  on  into 
the  loneliness  and  insignificance  of  being  an  old  maid.  Lots 
of  girls  never  fall  in  love  in  the  silly,  sentimental  manner 
which  produces  lyrics.  You  are  quite  certainly  one  of  them. 
And  as  certainly  Mr.  Home  is  in  love  with  you." 

"  We  have  been  into  this  before,"  said  the  girl. 

"  It  is  necessary,  apparently,  to  go  into  it  again.  Mr. 
Home,  I  feel  certain,  is  going  to  propose  to  you,  and  you 
should  not  do  indiscreet  things.  With  regard  to  your  refus- 
ing him,  it  is  out  of  the  question.  He  is  extremely  suitable 
in  every  way.  And  you  told  me  yourself  you  had  made  up 
your  mind  to  accept  him." 

"  You  made  up  my  mind,"  said  Madge ;  "  but  it  comes  to 
the  same  thing." 

"  Precisely.  So  please  promise  me  not  to  do  anything 
which  a  girl  in  your  position  should  not  do.  There  is  no 
earthly  harm  in  your  walking  with  any  penniless  artist  in 
the  moonlight,  if  you  were  not  situated  as  you  are.  But  at 
the  moment  it  is  indiscreet. 

"  You  are  wrong  if  you  suppose  that  Mr.  Dundas  said 
anything  to  me  which  could  possibly  be  interpreted  into  a 
tender  interest,"  said  Madge.  "  He  called  attention  to  the 
moon  merely  in  order  to  remark  that  it  was  out  of  drawing." 

"  That  never  occurred  to  me,"  said  her  mother,  "  though 
it  would  be  a  matter  of  total  indifference  whether  he  took  a 
tender  interest  in  you  or  not.  I  merely  want  your  promise 
that  you  will  not  repeat  the  indiscretion." 

"  Oh,  certainly,"  said  Madge. 

Lady  Ellington  had  put  her  bedroom  candle  on  Madge's 
dressing-table.  As  soon  as  she  had  received  the  assurance 
she  required,  she  at  once  rose  from  her  chair  and  took  it  up. 
But  with  it  in  her  hand  she  stood  silent  a  moment,  then  slv 
put  it  down  again. 

"  You  have  spoken  again  of  things  I  thought  were  settled, 
Madge,"  she  said,  "  and  I  should  like  your  assurance  on 
one  point  further.  We  agreed,  did  we  not,  that  it  would  be 
far  better  for  you  to  marry  than  remain  sinele.  We  agreed 


30  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

also  that  you  were  not  of  the  sort  of  nature  that  falls  pas- 
sionately in  love,  and  we  agreed  that  you  had  better  marry 
a  man  whom  you  thoroughly  like  and  esteem.  Mr.  Home 
is  such  a  man.  Is  that  correctly  stated?" 

"  Quite,"  said  Madge.  "  In  fact,  I  don't  know  why  I 
suggested  that  I  should  refuse  him." 

"  You  agree  to  it  all  still  ?" 

Madge  considered  a  moment. 

"  Yes ;  things  being  as  they  are,  I  agree." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  that  exactly  ?" 

Madge  got  up,  and  swept  across  the  room  to  where  her 
mother  stood. 

"  I  have  long  meant  to  say  this  to  you,  mother,"  she  said, 
"  but  I  never  have  yet.  I  mean  that  at  my  age  one's  charac- 
ter to  some  extent  certainly  is  formed.  One  has  to  deal  with 
oneself  as  that  self  exists.  But  my  character  was  formed 
by  education  partly  and  by  my  upbringing,  for  which  you 
are  responsible.  I  think  you  have  taught  me  not  to  feel — to 
be  hard." 

Lady  Ellington  did  not  resent  this  in  the  slightest ;  indeed, 
it  was  part  of  her  plan  of  life  never  to  resent  what  anybody 
did  or  said;  for  going  back  to  first  principles,  resentment 
was  generally  so  useless. 

"  I  hope  I  have  taught  you  to  be  sensible,"  she  remarked. 

"  It  seems  to  me  I  am  being  very  sensible  now,"  said 
Madge,  "  and  you  may  certainly  take  all  the  credit  of  that, 
if  you  wish.  I  fully  intend  to  do,  at  any  rate,  exactly  what 
you  suggest — to  accept,  that  is  to  say,  a  man  whom  I  both 
esteem  and  respect,  and  who  is  thoroughly  suitable.  For 
suitable  let  us  say  wealthy — because  that  is  what  we  mean." 

Lady  Ellington  qualified  this. 

"  I  should  not  wish  you  to  marry  a  cad,  however  wealthy," 
she  said. 

Madge  moved  softly  up  and  down  the  room,  her  dress 
whispering  on  the  carpet  before  she  replied. 

"  And  it  does  not  strike  you  that  this  is  rather  a  cold- 
blooded proceeding?"  she  asked. 

"  It  would  if  you  were  in  love  with  somebody  else.  In 
which  case  I  should  not  recommend  you  to  marry  Mr.  Home. 
But  as  it  is,  it  is  the  most  sensible  thing  you  can  do.  I 
would  go  further  than  that ;  I  should  say  it  was  your  duty." 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  31 

Again  Madge  walked  up  and  down  without  replying  at 
once. 

"  Ah,  it  is  cold-blooded,"  she  said,  "  and  I  am  doing  it  be- 
cause I  am  cold-blooded." 

Then  she  stopped  opposite  her  mother. 

"  Mother,  when  other  girls  fall  in  love,  do  they  only  feel 
like  this  ?"  she  asked.  "  Is  this  all  ?  Just  to  feel  that  for  the 
rest  of  one's  life  one  will  always  have  a  very  pleasant  com- 
panion in  the  house,  who,  I  am  sure,  will  always  deserve 
one's  liking  and  esteem  ?" 

Lady  Ellington  laughed. 

"  My  dear,  I  can't  say  what  other  girls  feel.  But,  as  you 
remark,  it  is  all  you  feel.  You  are  twenty-five  years  old, 
and  you  have  never  fallen  in  love.  As  you  say,  you  have  to 
take  yourself  as  you  are.  Good  night,  dear.  It  is  very  late." 

She  kissed  her,  left  her,  and  went  down  the  passage  to  her 
own  room.  She  was  a  very  consistent  woman,  and  it  was 
not  in  the  slightest  degree  likely  that  she  should  distrust  the 
very  sensible  train  of  reasoning  which  she  had  indicated  to 
her  daughter,  which  also  she  had  held  for  years,  that  a  sensi- 
ble marriage  is  the  best  policy  in  which  to  invest  a  daughter's 
happiness.  Lady  Ellington's  own  experience,  indeed,  sup- 
plied her  with  evidence  to  support  her  view,  for  she  herself 
was  an  excellent  case  in  point,  for  her  husband  had  been  a 
man  with  whom  she  had  never  been  the  least  in  love,  but 
with  whom,  on  the  other  hand,  she  had  managed  to  be  very 
happy  in  a  cast-iron  sort  of  way.  She  felt,  indeed,  quite 
sure,  in  her  reasonable  mind,  that  she  was  acting  wisely  for 
Madge,  and  it  was  not  in  her  nature  to  let  an  unreasonable 
doubt  trouble  her  peace.  But  an  unreasonable  doubt  was 
there,  and  it  was  this,  that  Madge  for  the  first  time,  as  far 
as  she  knew,  seemed  to  have  contemplated  the  possibility  of 
passion  coming  into  her  life.  There  had  been  in  her  mind, 
so  her  mother  felt  sure,  an  unasked  question — "  What  if  I 
do  fall  in  love?" 

Lady  Ellington  turned  this  over  in  the  well-lit  chamber 
of  her  brain  as  she  went  to  bed.  But  her  common-sense 
came  to  her  aid,  and  she  did  not  lie  awake  thinking  of  it. 
She  had  made  up  her  mind  that  such  a  thing  was  unlikely 
to  the  verge  of  impossibility,  and  she  never  wasted  time  or 
thought  over  what  was  impossible.  Her  imagination,  it  is 
true,  was  continually  busy  over  likely  combinations;  there 


32  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

were,  however,  so  many  of  these  that  things  unlikely  did  not 
concern  her. 

The  men  meantime  had  gone  to  the  smoking-room,  and 
from  there  had  moved  out  in  general  quest  of  coolness  on  to 
the  terrace.  The  moon  had  risen  nearly  to  the  zenith,  and  no 
longer  offended  Evelyn's  sense  of  proportion,  and  the  night, 
dusky  and  warm,  disposed  to  personal  talk.  And  since 
neither  Evelyn  nor  Philip  had  seen  Tom  Merivale  for  a 
year,  it  was  he  who  had  first  to  be  brought  up  to  date. 

"  So  go  on  with  what  you  were  saying  at  dinner,  Tom," 
said  Evelyn.  "  Really,  people  who  are  friends  ought  to  keep 
a  sort  of  circulating  magazine,  in  which  they  write  them- 
selves up  and  send  it  round  to  the  circle.  In  any  case,  you  of 
the  three  of  us  are  most  in  arrears.  What  have  you  done  be- 
sides growing  so  much  younger?" 

"  Do  you  really  want  to  know  ?"  asked  he. 

"  Yes." 

Evelyn  rose  as  he  spoke  and  squirted  some  soda-water  into 
his  glass.  They  were  sitting  in  the  square  of  light  illumi- 
nated by  the  lamps  of  the  room  inside,  and  what  passed  was 
clearly  visible  to  all  of  them. 

"  You  must  sit  quiet  then/'  said  Tom,  in  his  low,  even- 
toned  voice,  "  or  you  will  frighten  them." 

"  Them  ?  Whom  ?  Are  you  going  to  raise  spirits  from  the 
vasty  deep  ?"  asked  Philip. 

"  Oh,  no ;  though  I  fancy  it  would  not  be  so  difficult.  No, 
what  I  am  going  to  show  you,  if  you  care  to  see  it — it  may 
take  ten  minutes — is  a  thing  that  requires  no  confederates. 
It  is  not  the  least  exciting  either.  Only  if  you  wish  to  see 
what  I  have  done,  as  you  call  it,  though  personally  I  should 
say  what  I  have  become,  I  can  give  you  an  example  probably. 
Oh,  yes,  more  than  probably,  I  am  sure  I  can.  But  please 
sit  still." 

The  night  was  very  windless  and  silent.  In  the  woods 
below  a  nightingale  was  singing,  but  the  little  wind  which 
had  stirred  before  among  the  garden  beds  had  completely 
dropped. 

"  Have  you  begun  ?"  asked  Evelyn.  "  Or  is  that  all  ?  Is  it 
that  you  have  been  silent  for  a  year  ?" 

"  Ah,  don't  interrupt,"  said  the  other. 

Again  there  was  silence,  except  for  the  bubbling  of  the 
nightingale.  Four  notes  it  sang,  four  notes  of  white  sound 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  33 

as  pure  as  flame ;  then  it  broke  into  a  liquid  bubble  of  melo- 
dious water,  all  transparent,  translucent,  the  apotheosis  of 
song.  Then  a  thrill  of  ecstasy  possessed  it,  and  cadence  fol- 
lowed indescribable  cadence,  as  if  the  unheard  voice  of  all 
nature  was  incarnated.  Then  quite  suddenly  the  song  ceased 
altogether. 

There  was  a  long  pause ;  both  Evelyn  and  Philip  sat  in  ab- 
solute silence,  waiting.  Tom  Merivale  had  always  been  so 
sober  and  literal  a  fellow  that  they  took  his  suggestion  with 
the  same  faith  that  they  took  the  statements  of  an  almanack 
— it  was  sure  to  be  the  day  that  the  almanack  said  it  was. 
But  for  what  they  waited — what  day  it  was — neither  knev" 
nor  guessed. 

Then  the  air  was  divided  by  fluttering  wings;  Tom  held 
his  hand  out,  and  on  the  forefinger  there  perched  a  little 
brown  bird. 

"  Sing,  dear,"  said  he. 

The  bird  threw  its  head  back,  for  nightingales  sing  with 
the  open  throat.  And  from  close  at  hand  they  all  three 
heard  the  authentic  love  song  of  the  nightingale.  The  un- 
premeditated rapture  poured  from  it,  wings  quivering,  throat 
throbbing,  the  whole  little  brown  body  was  alert  with 
melody,  instinctive,  untaught,  the  melody  of  happiness,  of 
love  made  audible.  Then,  tired,  it  stopped. 

"  Thank  you,  dear  brother,"  said  Tom.  "  Go  home." 

Again  a  flutter  of  wings  whispered  in  the  air,  and  his  fore- 
finger was  untenanted. 

"  That  is  what  I  have  done,"  He  said.  "  But  that  is  only 
the  beginning." 

Evelyn  gave  a  long  sigh. 

"  Are  you  mad,  or  are  we  ?"  he  asked.  "  Or  was  there  a 
bird  there  ?  Or  are  you  a  hypnotist  ?" 

He  got  up  quickly. 

"  Phil,  I  swear  I  saw  a  bird,  and  heard  it  sing,"  he  said  ex- 
citedly. "  It  was  sitting  there,  there  on  his  finger.  What  has 
happened  ?  Go  on,  Tom — tell  us  what  it  means." 

"  It  means  you  are  the  son  of  a  monkey,  as  Darwin 
proved,"  said  he,  "  and  the  grandson,  so  to  speak,  of  a 
potato.  That  is  all.  It  was  a  cousin  of  a  kind  that  sat  on 
my  finger.  Philip,  with  his  gold  and  his  Stock  Exchange 
and  his  business  generally,  does  much  more  curious  things 


34  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

than  that.  But,  personally,  I  do  not  find  them  so  interest- 
ing." 

Philip,  silent  as  was  his  wont  when  puzzled,  instead  of 
rushing  into  speech,  had  said  nothing.  But  now  he  asked  a 
question. 

"  Of  course,  it  was  not  a  conjuring  trick,"  he  said.  "  That 
would  be  futility  itself.  But  you  used  to  have  extraordinary 
hypnotic  power,  Tom.  I  only  ask — Was  that  a  real  night- 
ingale ?" 

"  Quite  real." 

Evelyn  put  down  his  glass  untasted. 

*'•  I  am  frightened,"  he  said.    "  I  shall  go  to  bed." 

And  without  more  words  he  bolted  into  the  house. 

Philip  called  good  night  after  him,  but  there  was  no  re- 
sponse, and  he  was  left  alone  with  the  Hermit. 

"  I  am  not  frightened,"  he  said.  "  But  what  on  earth  does 
it  all  mean  ?  Have  a  drink  ?" 

Tom  Merivale  laughed  quietly. 

"  It  means  exactly  what  I  have  said,"  he  answered. 
"  Come  down  to  my  home  sometime,  and  you  shall  see.  It 
is  all  quite  simple  and  quite  true.  It  is  all  as  old  as  love  and 
as  new  as  love.  It  is  also  perfectly  commonplace.  It  must 
be  so.  I  have  only  taken  the  trouble  to  verifv  it." 

Philip's  cool  business  qualities  came  to  his  aid,  or  his'  un- 
doing. 

"  You  mean  you  can  convey  a  message  to  a  bird  or  a 
beast?"  he  asked. 

"  Oh,  yes.  Why  not  ?  The  idea  is  somehow  upsetting  to 
you.  Pray  don't  let  it  upset  you.  Nothing  that  happens  can 
ever  be  upsetting.  It  is  only  the  things  that  don't  happen 
that  are  such  anxieties,  for  fear  they  may.  But  when  they 
have  happened  they  are  never  alarming." 

He  pushed  his  chair  back  and  got  up. 

"  Ah,  I  have  learned  one  thing  in  this  last  year,"  he  said, 
"  and  that  is  to  be  frightened  at  nothing.  Fear  is  the  one 
indefensible  emotion.  You  can  do  nothing  at  all  if  you  are 
afraid.  You  know  that  yourself  in  business.  But  whether 
you  embark  on  business  or  on — what  shall  I  call  it  ? — nature- 
lore,  the  one  thing  indispensable  is  to  go  ahead.  To  take 
your  stand  firmly  on  what  you  know,  and  deduce  from  that. 
Then  to  test  your  deduction,  and  as  soon  as  one  will  bear 
your  weight  to  stand  on  that  and  deduce  again,  being  quite 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  35 

sure  all  the  time  that  whatever  is  true  is  right.  Perhaps 
sometime  the  world  in  general  may  see,  not  degradation  in 
the  origin  of  man  from  animals,  but  the  extraordinary  nobil- 
ity of  it.  And  then  perhaps  they  will  go  further  back — back 
to  Pagan  things,  to  Pan,  the  God  of  nature." 

"  To  see  whom  meant  death,"  remarked  Philip. 

"  Yes,  or  life.  Death  is  merely  an  incident  in  life.  And  it 
seems  to  me  now  to  be  rather  an  unimportant  one.  One 
can't  help  it.  Whereas  the  important  events  are  those  which 
are  within  one's  control;  one's  powers  of  thought,  for  in- 
stance." 

Philip  rose  also. 

"  And  love,"  he  said.    "  Is  that  in  one's  control  ?" 

Tom  took  a  long  breath. 

"  Love  ?"  he  said.  "  It  is  not  exactly  in  one's  control,  be- 
cause it  is  oneself.  There,  the  dear  bird  has  got  home." 

And  again  from  the  trees  below  the  bubble  of  liquid  mel- 
ody sounded. 


THIRD 


'VELYN  DUNDAS  was  sitting  next  morning  after 
breakfast  on  the  terrace,  where  what  he  alluded  to 
as  "  the  nightingale  trick  "  had  been  performed  the 
evening  before,  in  company  with  the  conjurer  who 
had  performed  it.  Philip  and  Madge  Ellington  had  just  gone 
down  to  the  river,  Lady  Ellington  who  was  to  have  accom- 
panied them  having  excused  herself  at  the  last  moment.  But 
since  a  mother  was  in  closer  and  more  intimate  connection 
with  a  girl  than  a  mere  chaperone,  she  had  seen  not  the 
smallest  objection  to  the  two  going  alone.  Indeed  she  had 
firmly  detained  Evelyn  by  a  series  of  questions  which  re- 
quired answers,  from  joining  them,  and,  though  deep  in  a 
discussion  about  art,  she  had  dropped  it  in  its  most  critical 
state  when  she  judged  that  the  other  two  had  been  given 
time  to  get  under  way.  It  had  required,  indeed,  all  her  ma- 
ternal solicitude  to  continue  it  so  long,  for  she  cared  less  for 
art  or  Evelyn's  theories  about  it  than  for  a  week-old  paper. 

Like  most  artists,  Evelyn  had  a  somewhat  egoistic  na- 
ture, and  since  his  personality  was  so  graceful  and  interest- 
ing, it  followed  that  many  people  found  his  talk  equally  so, 
especially  when  he  talked  about  himself.  For  his  egoism  he 
had  an  admirably  probable  explanation,  and  he  was  at  this 
moment  explaining  it  to  Tom  Merivale,  who  had  made  the 
soft  impeachment  with  regard  to  its  undoubted  existence. 

"  Ah,  yes,"  he  was  saying,  "  an  artist's  business  is  not  to 
put  things  down  as  they  are,  but  to  put  them  down  as  they 
strike  him.  Actual  truth  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  value  of 
a  landscape.  The  point  is  that  the  picture  should  be  beauti- 
ful. And  the  same  with  portraits,  only  beauty  there  is 
unnecessary.  You  have  to  put  down  what  you  think  you 
see,  or  what  you  choose  to  see." 

"  That  shouldn't  lead  to  egoism,"  remarked  Tom.  "  It 
should  lead  you  to  the  study  of  other  people." 

Evelyn  shook  his  head. 
36 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  37 

"  Xo,  no,"  he  said,  "  it  leads  you  to  devote  yourself  en- 
tirely almost  to  the  cultivation  of  your  own  faculty  of  see- 
ing. All  fine  portraits  show  a  great  deal  of  the  artist,  and 
perhaps  comparatively  little  of  the  sitter.  Why  are  Rem- 
brandts  so  unmistakable  ?  Not  because  the  type  of  his  sitters 
themselves  was  almost  identical,  but  because  there  is  lots  of 
Rembrandt  in  each.  You  can't  have  style  unless  you  are 
egoistic.  In  fact,  for  an  artist  style  means  egoism.  I  have 
heaps.  I  don't  say  or  pretend  it's  good,  but  there  it  is. 
Take  it  or  leave  it." 

Tom  Merivale  laughed. 

"  You  are  perfectly  inimitable,"  he  said.  "  I  love  your 
serious,  vivid  nonsense.  That  you  are  an  egoist  is  quite, 
quite  true.  But  how  much  better  an  artist  you  would  be  if 
you  weren't.  What  you  want  is  deepening.  You  don't  like 
the  deeps,  you  know.  You  haven't  got  any.  You  don't  like 
what  you  don't  understand ;  that  very  simple  little  affair  last 
night,  for  instance,  frightened  you." 

Egoists  are  invariably  truthful — according  to  their  lights 
— about  themselves.  Evelyn  was  truthful  now. 

"  Yes,  that  is  so,"  he  said.  "  I  don't  pretend  to  wish  to 
seek  out  the  secrets  of  the  stars.  But  I  know  what  I  like. 
And  I  don't  like  anything  that  leads  into  the  heart  of  things. 
I  don't  like  interiors  and  symbolism.  There  is  quite  enough 
symbol  for  me  on  the  surface.  What  I  mean  is  that  the  eye- 
brow itself,  the  curve  of  the  mouth,  will  tell  you  quite  as 
much  as  one  has  any  use  for  about  the  brain  that  makes  the 
eyebrow  frown  or  the  mouth  smile.  Beauty  may  be  skin 
deep  only,  but  it  is  quite  deep  enough.  Skin  deep !  Why,  it 
is  as  deep  as  the  sea !" 

Tom  Merivale  was  silent  a  little. 

"  Do  you  know,  you  are  an  interesting  survival  of  the 
Pagan  spirit?"  he  said  at  length. 

Evelyn  laughed. 

"  Erect  me  an  altar  then  at  once,  and  crown  me  with 
roses,"  he  remarked.  "  But  what  have  I  said  just  now  that 
makes  you  think  that?" 

"  Nothing  particular  this  moment,"  he  answered,  "  though 
your  remarking  that  beauty  was  enough  for  you  is  thor- 
oughly Greek  in  its  way.  No;  what  struck  me  was  that 
never  have  I  seen  in  you  the  smallest  rudiment  or  embryo  of 
a  conscience  or  of  any  moral  sense." 


38  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

Evelyn  looked  up  with  real  interest  at  this  criticism. 

"  Oh,  that  is  perfectly  true,"  he  said.  "  Certainly  I  never 
have  remorse ;  it  must  be  awful,  a  sort  of  moral  toothache. 
All  the  same,  I  don't  steal  or  lie,  you  know." 

"  Merely  because  lying  and  stealing  are  very  inartistic  per- 
formances," said  Tom.  "  But  no  idea  of  morality  stands  in 
your  way." 

Evelyn  got  up,  looking  out  over  the  heat-hazed  green  of 
the  woods  below  them  with  his  brilliant  glance. 

"  Is  that  very  shocking?"  he  asked,  with  perfectly  unas- 
sumed  naivete. 

"  I  suppose  it  is.  Personally,  I  am  never  shocked  at  any- 
thing. But  it  seems  to  me  very  dangerous.  You  ought  to 
wear  a  semaphore  with  a  red  lamp  burning  at  the  end  of  it." 

Evelyn  half  shut  his  eyes  and  put  his  head  on  one  side. 

"  I  don't  think  that  would  compose  well,"  he  said. 

"That  is  most  consistently  spoken,"  said  Tom.  "But 
really,  if  you  are  ever  in  earnest  about  anything  beside  your 
art,  you  would  be  a  public  danger." 

Evelyn  turned  round  on  this. 

"  You  call  me  a  Pagan,"  he  said.  "  Well,  what  are  you, 
pray,  with  your  communings  with  nature  and  conjuring 
tricks  with  nightingales?  You  belong  to  quite  as  early  a 
form  of  man." 

"  I  know.  I  am  primeval.  At  least  I  hope  to  be  before 
I  die." 

"What's  the  object?" 

"  In  order  to  see  Pan.  I  am  getting  on.  Come  down  to 
the  New  Forest  sometime,  and  you  shall  see  very  odd  things, 
I  promise  you.  Really,  Evelyn,  I  wish  you  would  come.  It 
would  do  you  no  end  of  good." 

He  got  up,  and  taking  the  arm  of  the  other  man,  walked 
with  him  down  the  terrace. 

"  You  are  brilliant,  I  grant  you,"  he  said ;  "  but  you  are 
like  a  mirror,  only  reflecting  things.  What  you  want  is  to 
be  lit  from  within.  Who  is  it  who  talks  of  the  royalty  of 
inward  happiness?  That  is  such  a  true  phrase.  All  happi- 
ness from  without  is  not  happiness  at  all ;  it  is  only  pleasure. 
And  pleasure  is  always  imperfect.  It  flickers  and  goes  out, 
it  has  scratching  nails " 

Evelyn  shook  himself  free. 

"  Ah,  let  me  be,"  he  said.     "  I  don't  want  anything  else. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  39 

Besides,  as  you  have  told  me  before,  you  yourself  dislike  and 
detest  suffering  or  pain.  But  how  can  you  hope  to  under- 
stand Nature  at  all  if  you-  leave  all  that  aside  ?  Why,  man, 
the  whole  of  Nature  is  one  groan,  one  continuous  preying  of 
creature  on  creature.  In  your  life  in  the  New  Forest  you 
leave  all  that  out." 

Tom  Merivale  paused. 

"  I  know  I  do,"  he  said,  "  because  I  want  to  grasp  first, 
once  and  for  all  the  huge  joy  that  pervades  Nature,  which 
seems  to  me  much  more  vital  in  itself  than  pain.  It  seems 
to  me  that  pain  may  be  much  more  rightly  called  absence  of 
joy  than  joy  be  called  absence  of  pain.  What  the  whole  thing 
starts  from,  the  essential  spring  of  the  world  is  not  pain  and 
death,  but  joy  and  life." 

"  Ah,  there  I  am  with  you.  But  there  is  so  much  joy  and 
life  on  the  surface  of  things  that  I  don't  wish  to  probe  down. 
Ah,  Tom,  a  day  like  this  now ;  woven  webs  of  blue  heat,  hot 
scents  from  the  flower  beds,  the  faces  of  our  friends.  Is  that 
not  enough?  It  is  for  me.  And,  talking  of  faces,  Miss 
Ellington  has  the  most  perfectly  modelled  face  I  ever  saw. 
The  more  I  look  at  it,  the  more  it  amazes  me.  I  stared  at 
her  all  breakfast.  And  the  charm  of  it  is  its  consistent  irreg- 
ularity; not  a  feature  is  anything  like  perfect,  but  what  a 
whole !  I  wish  I  could  do  her  portrait." 

Tom  laughed. 

"  There  would  not  be  the  slightest  difficulty  about  that,  I 
should  say,"  he  remarked,  "  if  you  promise  to  present  it  to 
her  mother." 

"  Why,  of  course,  I  would.  How  funny  it  must  feel  to  be 
hard  like  that.  She  is  very  bruising ;  I  feel  that  I  am  being 
hit  in  the  eye  when  she  talks  to  me.  And  she  knows  how 
many  shillings  go  to  a  sovereign." 

"  Twenty,"  remarked  Tom. 

"  Ah,  that  is  where  you  are  wrong.  She  gets  twenty-one 
for  each  of  her  sovereigns.  And  thirteen  pence  for  each  of 
her  shillings,  and  the  portrait  of  her  daughter  for  nothing 
at  all.  Oh,  Tom,  think  of  it — with  a  background  of  some- 
thing blue,  cornflower,  forget-me-nots,  or  lilac,  to  show 
how  really  golden  her  hair  is.  There's  Mrs.  Home." 

Evelyn  whistled  with  peculiar  shrillness  on  his  fingers  to 
the  neat  little  figure  on  the  croquet  lawn  below  them.  She 


40  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

started,  not  violently,  for  nothing  she  did  was  violent,  but 
very  completely. 

"  Ah,  it  is  only  you,"  she  said.  "  I  thought  it  might  be  an 
express  train  loose.  Are  you  not  going  on  the  river,  dear 
Evelyn?" 

"  I  was  prevented,"  he  said,  jumping  down  the  steps  in 
one  flying  leap.  "  Dear  Philippina " 

"What  next?  What  next?"  murmured  Mrs.  Home. 
"  Oh,  do  behave,  Evelyn." 

"  Well,  Philip  is  your  son,  so  you  are  Philippina.  But 
why  have  prize-fighters  in  your  house  ?" 

"  Prize-fighters  ?" 

"  Yes.  Lady  Ellington  had  my  head  in  Chancery  for  ten 
minutes  just  now.  She  delivered  a  series  of  quick-firing 
questions.  I  know  why,  too ;  it  was  to  prevent  my  going  on 
the  river.  She  was  perfectly  successful — I  should  think  she 
always  was  successful ;  she  mowed  me  down.  Now  will  you 
tell  me  the  truth  or  not?" 

"  No,  dear  Evelyn,"  said  Mrs.  Home  rather  hastily,  guess- 
ing what  was  coming. 

"  Then  you  are  a  very  wicked  woman ;  but  as  I  now  know 
you  are  going  to  tell  an  untruth,  it  will  do  just  as  well  for  my 
purpose.  Now,  is  Philip  engaged  to  Miss  Ellington  ?" 

"  No,  dear ;  indeed  he  is  not,"  said  Mrs.  Home. 

"  Oh,  why  not  lie  better  than  that  ?"  said  Evelyn. 

Mrs.  Home  clasped  her  white,  delicate  little  hands  to- 
gether. 

"  Ah,  but  it  is  true,"  she  said.  "  It  really  is  literally  true, 
as  far  as  I  know." 

Evelyn  shook  his  head  at  her. 

"  But  they  have  been  gone  half  an  hour,"  he  said.  "  You 
mean — I  tell  you,  you  mean  that  they  may  be  now,  for  all 
you  know." 

Mrs.  Home  turned  her  pretty,  china-blue  eyes  on  to  him, 
with  a  sort  of  diminutive  air  of  dignity. 

"  Of  course  you  are  at  liberty  to  put  any  construction  you 
please  on  anything  I  say,"  she  remarked. 

"  I^am,"  said  he,  "  and  I  put  that.    Now,  are  you  pleased 

"  She  is  charming,"  said  Mrs.  Home,  hopelessly  off  her 
guard. 

"  That  is  all  I  wanted  to  know,"  said  Evelyn.    "  But  what 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  41 

a  tangled  web  you  weave,  without  deceiving  me  in  the  least, 
you  old  darling." 

Tom  Merivale  had  not  joined  Evelyn,  but  strolled  along 
the  upper  walk  through  herbaceous  borders.  He  had  not 
stayed  away  from  his  home  now  for  the  past  year,  and 
delighted  though  he  was  to  see  these  two  old  friends  of  his 
again,  he  confessed  to  himself  that  he  found  the  call  on 
sociability  which  a  visit  tacitly  implied  rather  trying.  More 
than  that,  he  found  even  the  presence  of  other  people  in  the 
house  with  whom  he  was  not  on  terms  of  intimacy  a  thing  a 
little  upsetting,  for  his  year  of  solitude  had  given  some  justi- 
fication to  his  nickname.  For  solitude  is  a  habit  of  extraor- 
dinary fascination,  and  very  quick  to  grow  on  anyone  who 
has  sufficient  interest  in  things  not  to  be  bored  by  the  ab- 
sence of  people.  And  with  Tom  Merivale  Nature,  the  un- 
folding of  flowers,  the  lighting  of  the  stars  in  the  sky,  the 
white  splendour  of  the  moon,  the  hiss  of  the  rain  on  to  cow- 
ering shrubs  and  thirsty  grass  was  much  more  than  an  inter- 
est ;  it  was  a  passion  which  absorbed  and  devoured  him.  For 
Nature,  to  the  true  devotee,  is  a  mistress  far  more  exacting 
and  far  more  infinite  in  her  variety  and  rewards  than  was 
ever  human  mistress  to  her  adorer.  Torn  Merivale,  at  any 
rate,  was  faithful  and  wholly  constant,  and  to  him  now,  after 
a  year  spent  in  solitude  in  which  no  man  had  ever  felt  less 
alone,  no  human  tie  or  affection  weighed  at  all  compared  to 
the  patient  devotion  with  which  he  worshipped  this  ever 
young  mistress  of  his.  To  some,  indeed,  as  to  Mrs.  Home, 
this  cutting  of  himself  off  from  all  other  human  ties  might 
seem  to  verge  on  insanity;  to  others,  as  to  Philip,  it  might 
equally  well  be  construed  into  an  example  of  perfect  sanity. 
For  he  had  left  the  world,  and  cast  his  moorings  loose  from 
society  in  no  embittered  or  disappointed  mood ;  the  severance 
of  his  connection  with  things  of  human  interest  had  been 
deliberate  and  sanely  made.  He  believed,  in  fact,  that  what 
his  inner  essential  self  demanded  was  not  to  be  found  among 
men,  or,  as  he  had  put  it  once  to  Philip,  it  was  to  be  found 
there  in  such  small  quantities  compared  to  the  mass  of  alloy 
and  undesirable  material  from  which  it  had  to  be  extracted, 
that  it  was  false  economy  to  quarry  in  the  world  of  cities. 
More  than  this,  too,  he  had  renounced,  though  this  second 
renunciation  had  not  been  deliberate,  but  had  followed,  so 
he  found,  as  a  sequel  to  the  other ;  for  he  had  been  a  writer 


42  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

of  fiction  who,  though  never  widely  read,  had  been  prized 
and  pored  over  by  a  circle  of  readers  whose  appreciation  was 
probably  far  more  worth  having  than  that  of  a  wider  circle 
could  have  been.  Then,  suddenly,  as  far  as  even  his  most 
intimate  friends  knew,  he  had  left  London,  establishing 
himself  instead  in  a  cottage,  of  the  more  comfortable  sort  of 
cottages,  some  mile  outside  Brockenhurst.  In  the  tea-cup 
way  this  had  made  quite  a  storm  in  the  set  that  knew  him 
well,  those,  in  fact,  by  whom  he  was  valued  as  an  interpreter 
and  a  living  example  of  the  things  of  which  he  wrote.  These 
writings  had  always  been  impersonal  in  note,  slightly  mysti- 
cal, and  always  with  the  refrain  of  Nature  running  through 
them.  But  none,  when  he  disappeared  as  completely  as 
Waring,  suspected  how  vital  to  himself  his  disappearance 
had  been.  Anything  out  of  the  way  is  labelled,  and  rightly 
by  the  majority,  to  be  insane.  By  such  a  verdict  Tom  Meri- 
vale  certainly  merited  Bedlam.  He  had  gone  away,  in  fact, 
to  think,  while  the  majority  of  those  who  crowd  into  the 
cities  do  so,  not  to  think,  but  to  be  within  reach  of  the  dis- 
tractions that  leave  no  time  for  thought.  For  action  is 
always  less  difficult  than  thought;  a  man  can  act  for  more 
hours  a  day  than  he  can  think  in  a  week,  and  action,  being  a 
productive  function  of  the  brain,  is  thus  (rightly,  also,  from 
the  social  point  of  view)  considered  the  more  respectable 
employment. 

The  subject  of  this  difficult  doctrine,  however,  was  more 
than  content;  as  he  had  said,  he  was  happy,  a  state  far  on 
the  sunward  side  of  the  other.  He  seemed  to  himself, 
indeed,  to  be  sitting  very  much  awake  and  alert  on  some 
great  sunlit  slope  of  the  world,  untenanted  by  man,  but  peo- 
pled with  a  million  natural  marvels  unconjectured  as  yet  by 
the  world,  but  which  slowly  coming  into  the  ken  of  his  won- 
dering and  patient  eyes.  For  a  year  now  he  had  consciously 
and  solely  devoted  himself  to  the  study  and  contemplation  of 
life,  that  eternal  and  ever-renewed  life  of  Nature,  and  the 
joy  manifested  therein.  He  had  turned  his  back  with  the 
same  careful  deliberation  on  all  that  is  painful  in  Nature,  all 
suffering,  all  that  hinders  and  mars  the  fulness  of  life,  on 
everything,  in  fact,  which  is  an  evidence  of  imperfection.  In 
this  to  a  large  extent  he  was  identically  minded  with  Chris- 
tian Scientists,  but  having  faced  the  central  idea  of  Chris- 
tianity, namely,  the  suffering  which  was  necessary  as  atone- 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  43 

ment  for  sin,  he  had  confessed  himself  unable  to  accept,  at 
present  at  any  rate,  the  possibility  of  suffering  being  ever 
necessary,  and  could  no  longer  call  himself  a  Christian. 
Happiness  was  his  gospel,  and  the  book  in  which  he  studied 
it  was  Nature,  omitting  always  such  chapters  as  dealt  with 
man.  For  man,  so  it  seemed  to  him,  had  by  centuries  of 
evolution  built  himself  into  something  so  widely  different 
from  Nature's  original  design,  that  the  very  contemplation 
of  and  association  with  man  was  a  thing  to  be  avoided. 
Absence  of  serenity,  absence  of  happiness,  seemed  the  two 
leading  characteristics  of  the  human  race,  whereas  happiness 
and  serenity  were  the  chief  of  those  things  for  which  he 
sought  and  for  which  he  lived. 

This  year's  solitude  and  quest  for  joy  had  already  pro- 
duced in  him  remarkable  results.  He  had  been  originally 
himself  of  a  very  high-strung,  nervous,  and  irritable  tem- 
perament; now,  however,  he  could  not  imagine  the  event 
which  should  disturb  his  equanimity.  For  this,  as  far  as  it 
went  alone,  he  was  perfectly  willing  to  accept  the  possible 
explanation  that  a  year's  life  in  the  open  air  had  wrought  its 
simple  miracle  of  healing  on  his  nerves,  and,  as  he  had  said 
to  Lady  Ellington,  the  perfection  of  health  had  eliminated 
the  possibility  of  discontent. 

But  other  phenomena  did  not  admit  of  quite  so  obvious 
an  interpretation ;  and  it  was  on  these  that  he  based  his 
belief  that,  though  all  that  occurred  must  necessarily  be  nat- 
ural, following,  that  is  to  say,  laws  of  nature,  he  was  expe- 
riencing the  effects  of  laws  which  were  to  the  rest  of  the 
world  occult  or  unknown.  For  in  a  word,  youth,  with  all  its 
vivid  vigour,  its  capacity  for  growth  and  expansion,  had 
returned  to  him  in  a  way  unprecedented ;  his  face,  as  Evelyn 
had  noticed,  had  grown  younger,  and  in  a  hundred  merely 
corporeal,  ways  he  had  stepped  back  into  early  manhood. 
Again,  and  this  was  more  inexplicable,  he  had  somehow 
established,  without  meaning  to,  a  certain  communion  with 
birds  and  beasts,  of  which  the  "  nightingale  trick"  had  been 
a  small  instance,  which  seemed  to  him  must  be  a  direct  and 
hitherto  unknown  effect  of  his  conscious  absorption  of  him- 
self in  Nature.  How  far  along  this  unexplored  path  he 
would  be  able  to  go  he  had  no  idea;  he  guessed,  however, 
that  he  had  at  present  taken  only  a  few  halting  steps  along 
a  road  that  was  lost  in  a  golden  haze  of  wonder. 


44  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

He  strolled  along  out  through  the  garden  into  a  solitary 
upland  of  bush-besprinkled  turf.  Wild  flowers  of  down- 
land,  the  rock-rose,  the  harebell,  orchids,  and  meadow-sweet 
carpeted  the  short  grass,  and  midsummer  held  festival.  But 
this  morning  his  thoughts  were  distracted  from  the  Nature- 
world  in  which  he  lived,  and  he  found  himself  dwelling  on 
the  human  beings  among  whom  for  a  few  days  he  would 
pass  his  time.  It  was  natural  from  the  attitude  of  this  last 
year  that  Evelyn  Dundas  and  Mrs.  Home  should  be  of  the 
party  in  the  house  the  most  congenial  to  him,  and  the  sim- 
plicity of  them  both  seemed  to  him  far  more  interesting  than 
the  greater  complexity  of  the  others.  It  would,  it  is  true,  be 
hard  to  find  two  examples  of  simplicity  so  utterly  unlike 
each  other,  but  serene  absence  of  calculation  or  scheming 
brought  both  under  one  head.  They  were  both,  in  a  way, 
children  of  Nature;  Mrs.  Home  on  the  one  hand  having 
arrived  at  her  inheritance  by  cheerful,  unswerving  patience 
and  serenity  with  events  external  to  herself;  while  in  the 
case  of  the  other,  his  huge  vitality,  coupled  with  his  extreme 
impressionableness  to  beauty,  brought  him,  so  it  seemed  to 
Tom  Merivale,  into  very  close  connection  with  the  essentials 
of  life.  But,  as  he  had  told  his  friend,  Evelyn's  attitude  to 
life  was  instinctively  Pagan ;  immoral  he  was  not,  for  his 
fastidiousness  labelled  such  a  thing  ugly,  but  he  had  appar- 
ently no  rudiments  even  of  conscience  or  sense  of  moral  obli- 
gation. And  somehow,  with  that  curious  sixth  sense  of  pres- 
cience, so  common  in  animals,  so  rare  among  civilized  human 
beings  who,  by  means  of  continued  calculation  and  reasoned 
surmise  of  the  future,  which  has  caused  it  to  wither  and 
atrophize,  Tom  felt,  just  as  he  could  feel  approaching 
storms,  a  vague  sense  of  coming  disaster. 

The  sensation  was  very  undefined,  but  distinctly  unpleas- 
ant, and,  following  his  invariable  rule  to  divert  his  mind 
from  all  unpleasantness,  he  lay  down  on  the  short  turf  and 
buried  his  face  in  a  great  bed  of  thyme  which  grew  there. 
All  summer  was  in  that  smell,  hot,  redolent,  the  very  breath 
of  life,  and  with  eyes  half-closed  and  nostrils  expanded  he 
breathed  it  deeply  in. 

The  place  he  had  come  to  was  very  remote  and  solitary, 
a  big  clearing  in  the  middle  of  trees,  well  known  to  him  in 
earlier  years.  No  road  crossed  it,  no  house  lay  near  it,  but 
the  air  was  resonant  with  the  labouring  bees,  and  the  birds 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  45 

called  and  fluted  to  each  other  in  the  trees.  But  suddenly, 
as  he  lay  there,  half  lost  in  a  stupor  of  happiness,  he  heard 
very  faintly  another  noise,  to  which  at  first  he  paid  but  little 
attention.  It  was  the  sound  apparently  of  a  flute  being 
planted  at  some  great  distance  off,  but  what  soon  arrested  his 
attention  was  the  extremely  piercing  character  of  the  notes. 
Remote  as  the  sound  was,  and  surrounded  as  he  was  by  the 
hundred  noises  of  the  summer  noon,  it  yet  seemed  to  him 
perfectly  clear  and  distinct  through  them  all.  Then  some- 
thing further  struck  him,  for  phrase  after  phrase  of  delicious 
melody  was  poured  out,  yet  the  same  phrase  was  never 
repeated,  nor  did  the  melody  come  to  an  end ;  on  the  top  of 
every  climax  came  another ;  it  was  a  tune  unending,  eternal, 
and  whether  it  came  from  earth  or  heaven,  from  above 
or  below,  he  could  not  determine,  for  it  seemed  to  come  from 
everywhere  equally ;  it  was  as  universal  as  the  humming  of 
the  bees. 

Then  suddenly  a  thought  flashed  into  his  mind ;  he  sprang 
up,  and  a  strange  look  of  fear  crossed  his  face.  At  the  same 
instant  the  tune  ceased. 


FOURTH 


^ — . — 'T  was  not  in  Lady  Ellington's  nature  to  be  enthus- 
iastic, since  she  considered  enthusiasm  to  be  as 
great  a  waste  of  the  emotional  fibres  as  anger,  but 
*^~^^~^  she  was  at  least  thoroughly  satisfied  when,  two 
evenings  after  this,  Madge  came  to  her  room  before  dinner 
after  another  punting  expedition  with  Philip,  and  gave  her 
news. 

"  It  is  quite  charming,"  said  her  mother,  "  and  you  have 
shown  great  good  sense.  Dear  child,  I  must  kiss  you.  And 
where  is  Mr.  Home — Philip  I  must  call  him  now?" 

"  He  is  outside,"  said  Madge.  "  I  said  I  would  go  down 
again  for  a  few  minutes  before  dinner." 

Lady  Ellington  got  up  and  kissed  her  daughter  conscien- 
tiously, first  on  one  cheek  and  then  on  the  other. 

"  I  will  come  down  with  you,"  she  said,  "  just  to  tell  him 
how  very  much  delighted  I  am.  I  shall  have  to  have  a  long 
talk  to  him  to-morrow  morning." 

There  was  no  reason  whatever  why  the  engagement  should 
not  be  announced  at  once,  and  in  consequence  congratula- 
tions descended  within  the  half  hour.  Mrs.  Home  was  a 
little  tearful,  with  tears  of  loving  happiness  on  behalf  of  her 
son,  which  seemed  something  of  a  weakness  to  Lady  Elling- 
ton ;  Tom  Merivale  was  delighted  in  a  sort  of  faraway  man- 
ner that  other  people  should  be  happy ;  Evelyn  Dundas  alone, 
in  spite  of  his  previous  preparation  for  the  news,  felt  some- 
how slightly  pulled  up.  For  with  his  complete  and  in- 
stinctive surrender  to  every  mood  of  the  moment,  he  had 
permitted  himself  to  take  great  pleasure  in  the  contempla- 
tion— it  was  really  hardly  more  than  that — of  Madge's 
beauty,  and  he  felt  secretly,  for  no  shadow  obscured  the 
genuineness  of  his  congratulations,  a  certain  surprise  and 
sense  of  being  ill-used.  He  was  not  the  least  in  love  with 
Madge,  but  even  in  so  short  a  time  they  had  fallen  into  ways 
of  comradeship,  and  her  engagement,  he  felt,  curtailed  the 
46 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  47 

liberties  of  that  delightful  relationship.  And  again  this  even- 
ing, having  cut  out  of  a  bridge  table,  he  wandered  with  her 
in  the  perfect  dusk.  Lady  Ellington  this  time  observed  their 
exit,  but  cheerfully  permitted  it;  no  harm  could  be  done 
now.  It  received,  in  fact,  her  direct  and  conscious  sanction,, 
since  Philip  had  suggested  to  Madge  that  Evelyn  should 
paint  her  portrait.  He  knew  that  Evelyn  was  more  than 
willing  to  do  so,  and  left  the  arrangement  of  sitting  to  sitter 
and  artist.  In  point  of  fact,  it  was  this  subject  that  occupied 
the  two  as  they  went  out. 

"  We  shall  be  in  London  for  the  next 'month,  Mr.  Dun- 
das,"  Madge  was  saying,  "  and  of  course  I  will  try  to  suit 
your  convenience.  It  is  so  good  of  you  to  say  you  will  begin, 
it  at  once." 

Evelyn's  habitual  frankness  did  not  desert  him. 

"  Ah,  I  must  confess,  then,"  he  said.  "  It  isn't  at  all  good 
of  me.  You  see,  I  want  to  paint  you,  and  I  believe  I  can. 
And  I  will  write  to-morrow  to  a  terrible  railway  director  to 
say  that  in  consequence  of  a  subsequent  engagement  I  can- 
not begin  the — the  delineation  of  his  disgusting  features  for 
another  month." 

Madge  laughed ;  as  is  the  way  of  country-house  parties,, 
the  advance  in  intimacy  had  been  very  rapid. 

"  Oh,  that  would  be  foolish,"  she  said.  "Delineate  his  dis- 
gusting features  if  you  have  promised.  My  disgusting  fea- 
tures will  wait." 

"  Ah,  but  that  is  just  what  they  won't  do,"  said  Evelyn. 

"  Do  you  mean  they  will  go  bad,  like  meat  in  hot  weather? 
Thank  you  so  much." 

"  My  impression  will  go  bad,"  said  he.  "  No,  I  must  paint 
you  at  once.  Besides  " — and  still  he  was  perfectly  frank— 
"  besides  Philip  is,  I  suppose,  my  oldest  friend.  He  has 
asked  me  to  do  it,  and  friendship  comes  before  cheques." 

They  walked  in  silence  a  little  while. 

"  I  am  rather  nervous,"  said  Madge.  "  I  watched  you 
painting  this  afternoon  for  a  bit." 

"  Oh,  a  silly  sketch,"  said  he,  "  flowers,  terrace,  woods 
behind ;  it  was  only  a  study  for  a  background." 

"  Well,  it  seemed  to  affect  you.  You  frowned  and  growled^ 
and  stared  and  bit  the  ends  of  your  brushes.  Am  I  going  to> 
be  stuck  up  on  a  platform  to  be  growled  at  and  stared  at?" 
I  don't  think  I  could  stand  it ;  I  should  laugh." 


48  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

Evelyn  nodded  his  head  in  strong  approval. 

"  That  will  be  what  I  want,"  he  said.  "  I  will  growl  to  any 
extent  if  it  will  make  you  laugh.  I  shall  paint  you  laughing, 
laughing  at  all  the  ups  and  downs  of  the  world.  I  promise 
you  you  shall  laugh.  With  sad  eyes,  too,"  he  added.  "  Did 
you  know  you  had  sad  eyes?" 

Madge  slightly  entrenched  herself  at  this. 

"  I  really  haven't  studied  my  own  expression,"  she  said. 
"  Women  are  supposed  to  use  mirrors  a  good  deal,  but  they 
use  them,  I  assure  you,  to  see  if  their  hair  is  tidy." 

"  Your's  never  is  quite,"  said  he.  "  And  it  suits  you  ad- 
mirably." 

Again  the  gravel  sounded  crisply  below  their  feet,  with- 
out the  overscore  of  human  voices. 

Then  he  spoke  again. 

"  And  please  accept  my  portrait  of  you  as  my  wedding 
present  to  you — and  Philip,"  he  said  with  boyish  abruptness. 

Madge  for  the  moment  was  too  utterly  surprised  to  speak. 

"  But,  Mr.  Dundas,"  she  said  at  length,  "  I  can't— I— how 
can  I?" 

He  laughed. 

"  Well,  I  must  send  it  to  Philip,  then,"  he  said,  "  if  you 
won't  receive  it.  But — why  should  you  not  ?  You  are  going 
to  marry  my  oldest  friend.  I  can't  send  him  an  ivory  tooth- 
brush." 

This  reassured  her. 

"  It  is  too  kind  of  you,"  said  she.  "  I  had  forgotten  that. 
So  send  it  to  him." 

"  Certainly.  But  help  me  to  make  it  then  as  good  as  I 
can." 

"  Tell  me  how  ?"  she  asked,  feeling  inexplicably  uneasy. 

"  Why,  laugh,"  he  said.  "  That  is  how  I  see  you.  You 
laugh  so  seldom,  and  you  might  laugh  so  often.  Why  don't 
you  laugh  oftener?" 

Then  an  impulse  of  simple  honesty  came  to  her. 

"  Because  I  am  usually  bored,"  she  said. 

"Ah,  you  really  mustn't  be  bored  while  I  am  painting 
you,"  he  said.  "  I  could  do  nothing  with  it  if  you  were 
bored.  Besides,  it  would  be  so  uncharacteristic." 

"t  How  is  that,  v/hen  I  am  bored  so  often  ?"  she  asked. 
Oh,  it  isn't  the  tbing-s  we  do  often  that  are  characteristic 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  49 

of  us,"  said  he.  "  It  is  the  things  we  do  eagerly,  with  inten- 
tion." 

She  laughed  at  this. 

"  Then  you  are  right,"  she  said.  "  I  am  never  eagerly 
bored.  And  to  tell  you  the  truth,  I  don't  think  I  shall  be 
bored  when  I  sit  to  you.  Ah,  there  is  Philip.  He  does  not 
see  us ;  I  wonder  whether  he  will  ?" 

Philip's  white-fronted  figure  had  appeared  at  this  moment 
at  the  French  window  leading  out  of  the  drawing-room, 
and  his  eyes,  fresh  from  the  bright  light  inside,  were  not  yet 
focussed  to  the  obscurity  of  the  dusk.  At  that  moment 
Madge  found  herself  suddenly  wishing  that  he  would  go 
back  again.  But  as  soon  as  she  was  conscious  she  wished 
that,  she  resolutely  stifled  the  wish  and  called  to  him. 

"  Evelyn  there,  too  ?"  he  asked.  "  Evelyn,  you've  got  to  go 
in  and  take  my  place." 

"  And  you  will  take  mine,"  said  he  with  just  a  shade  of 
discontent  in  his  voice. 

"  No,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  Philip.  "  I  shall  take  my 
own." 

He  laughed. 

"  I  congratulate  you  again,"  he  said,  and  left  them. 

Philip  stood  for  a  moment  in  silence  by  the  girl,  looking 
at  her  with  a  sort  of  shy,  longing  wonder. 

"  Ah,  what  luck !"  he  said  at  length.  "  What  stupendous 
and  perfect  luck." 

"  What  is  luck,  Philip?"  she  asked. 

"  Why,  this.  You  and  me.  Think  of  the  chances  against 
my  meeting  you  in  this  big  world,  and  think  of  the  chances 
against  your  saying  '  Yes.'  But  now — now  that  it  has  hap- 
pened it  couldn't  have  been  otherwise." 

Some  vague,  nameless  trouble  took  possession  of  the  girl, 
and  she  shivered  slightly. 

"  You  are  cold,  my  darling?"  he  said  quickly. 

She  had  been  leaning  against  the  stone  balustrade  of  the 
terrace,  but  stood  upright,  close  to  him. 

"  No,  not  in  the  least,"  she  said. 

"  What  is  it,  then?"  he  asked. 

"  It  is  nothing.  Only  I  suppose  I  feel  it  is  strange  that  in 
a  moment  the  whole  future  course  of  one's  life  is  changed 
like  this." 


50  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

He  took  her  hands  in  his,  and  the  authentic  fire  of  love 
burned  in  his  eyes. 

"  Strange  ?"  he  said.  "  Is  it  not  the  most  wonderful  of 
miracles?  I  never  knew  anything  so  wonderful  could  hap- 
pen. It  makes  all  the  rest  of  my  life  seem  dim.  There  is 
just  this  one  huge  beacon  of  light.  All  the  rest  is  in  shadow." 

She  raised  her  face  to  him  half  imploringly. 

"  Oh,  Philip,  is  it  all  that  to  you  ?"  she  asked.  "  I — I  am 
afraid." 

"  Because  you  have  made  me  the  happiest  man  alive  ?" 

A  sudden,  inevitable  impulse  of  honesty  prompted  Madge 
to  speak  out. 

"  No,  but  because  I  have  perhaps  meddled  with  great 
forces  about  which  I  know  nothing.  I  like  you  immensely ; 
I  have  never  liked  anyone  so  much.  I  esteem  you  and  re- 
spect you.  I  am  quite  willing  to  lead  the  rest  of  my  life  with 
you;  I  want  nothing  different.  But  will  that  do?  Is  that 
enough  ?  I  have  never  loved  as  I  believe  you  love  me.  I  do 
not  think  it  is  possible  to  me.  There,  I  have  told  you." 

Philip  raised  her  hands  to  his  lips  and  kissed  them. 

"  Ah,  my  dearest,  you  give  me  all  you  have  and  are,  and 
yet  you  say,  'Is  that  enough?'"  he  whispered.  "What 
more  is  possible  ?" 

She  looked  at  him  a  moment,  the  trouble  not  yet  quite  gone 
from  her  face.  Then  she  raised  it  to  his. 

"  Then  take  it,"  she  said. 

The  night  was  very  warm  and  windless,  and  for  some  time 
longer  they  walked  up  and  down,  or  stood  resting  against 
the  terrace  wall  looking  down  over  the  hushed  woods.  A 
nightingale,  the  same  perhaps  that  had  been  charmed  to 
Tom's  finger  two  evenings  ago,  poured  out  liquid  melody, 
and  the  moon  began  to  rise  in  the  East.  Gradually  their  talk 
veered  to  other  subjects,  and  Madge  mentioned  that  Evelyn 
was  willing  to  do  her  portrait. 

"  He  will  begin  at  once,"  she  said,  "  because  it  appears  his 
impression  of  me  isn't  a  thing  that  will  keep.  He  is  putting 
off  another  order  for  it." 

"That  is  dreadfully  immoral,"  said  Philip,  "but  I  am 
delighted  to  hear  it." 

"  Oh,  and  another  thing.  He  gives  it  us — to  you  and  me 
I  think  he  said — as  a  wedding  present." 

"  Ah,  I  can't  have  that,"  said  Philip  quickly.     "  That  is 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  51 

Evelyn  all  over.  There  never  was  such  an  unthinking,  gen- 
erous fellow.  But  it  is  quite  impossible.  Why,  it  would 
mean  a  sixth  part  of  his  year's  income." 

"  I  know ;  I  felt  that." 

Philip  laughed  rather  perplexedly. 

"  I  really  don't  know  what  is  to  be  done  with  him,"  he 
said.  "  Last  year  he  gave  my  mother  a  beautiful  pearl 
brooch.  That  sort  of  thing  is  so  embarrassing.  And  if  she 
had  not  accepted  it,  he  would  have  been  quite  capable  of 
throwing  it  into  the  Thames.  Indeed  he  threatened  to  do  so. 
And  he  will  be  equally  capable  of  throwing  his  cheque  into 
the  fire." 

"  All  the  same,  I  like  it  enormously,"  she  said ;  "  his  im- 
pulse, I  mean." 

"  I  know,  but  it  offends  my  instincts  as  a  man  of  business. 
I  might  just  as  well  refuse  to  charge  interest  on  loans. 
However,  I  will  see  what  I  can  do." 

They  went  in  again  soon  after  this,  for  it  was  growing 
late,  and  found  Lady  Ellington  preparing  to  leave  the  table 
of  her  very  complete  conquests.  It  had  fallen  to  Evelyn  to 
provide  her  with  a  no-trump  hand  containing  four  aces,  and 
she  was  disposed  to  be  gracious.  The  news,  furthermore, 
that  he  would  begin  her  daughter's  portrait  at  once  was 
gratifying  to  her,  and  she  was  anxious  that  the  sittings 
should  begin  at  once.  As  both  they  and  he  would  be  in  town 
for  the  next  month,  the  matter  was  easily  settled,  and  it  was 
arranged  that  the  thing  should  be  put  in  hand  immediately. 

Philip  followed  Evelyn  to  the  billiard-room  as  soon  as  the 
women  went  upstairs,  and  found  him  alone  there. 

"  The  Hermit  has  gone  to  commune  with  Nature,"  he 
said.  "  He  will  die  of  natural  causes  if  he  doesn't  look  out. 
He  called  me  a  Pagan  this  morning,  Philip.  Wasn't  it  rude  ? 
And  the  fact  that  it  is  true  seems  to  me  to  make  it  ruder." 

Philip  lit  his  cigarette. 

"  I'm  going  to  be  rude  too,  old  chap,"  said  he.  "  Evelyn, 
you  really  mustn't  make  a  present  of  the  portrait  to  Madge 
and  me.  It  is  awfully  good  of  you,  and  just  like  you,  but  I 
simply  couldn't  accept  it." 

Evelyn  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  Then  there  will  be  no  portrait  at  all,"  he  said  shortly. 
"  I  tell  you  I  won't  paint  it  as  an  order." 

Philip  held  out  his  hand. 


52  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  I  appreciate  it  tremendously,"  he  said.  "  It  is  most 
awfully  good  of  you.  But  it's  your  profession.  Hullo, 
here's  the  Hermit  back." 

Tom  Merivale  entered  at  this  moment. 

"  Aren't  we  going  to  sit  out  to-night  ?"  he  said. 

Evelyn  rose. 

"  Yes,  let's  go  out,"  he  said.  "  Well,  Philip,  not  a  line 
will  I  draw  unless  you  take  it.  Or  I'll  give  it  to  Miss  Elling- 
ton and  not  you." 

"  You  really  musn't,"  said  Philip. 

"  But  don't  you  see  I  want  to  paint  her?  I  said  so  to  you 
only  the  other  day.  Hang  it  all,  I  tell  you  that  I  do  it  for 
pleasure.  I  shall  also  be  the  vast  gainer  artistically.  I've 
got  an  idea  about  her,  in  fact,  and  if  you  don't  let  me  paint 
her  I  shall  do  it  from  memory,  in  which  case  it  will  not  be  so 
good." 

An  idea  struck  Philip. 

"  Well,  paint  me  as  well,"  he  said,  "  and  let  me  pay  you 
for  that." 

Evelyn  followed  Tom  out. 

"  Oh,  I  can't  haggle,"  he  said.  "  Yes,  I'll  paint  you  if  you 
like.  But  I  will  paint  Miss  Ellington  first.  In  fact,  you 
shall  be  painted  when  I've  nothing  else  to  do.  Well,  Hermit, 
seen  Pan  to-day?" 

"  No,  you  scoffer,"  said  Tom. 

"  Call  me  when  you  do.  I  should  like  to  see  him,  too. 
Let's  see,  he  was  a  man  with  goat's  legs ;  sort  of  things  you 
see  in  Barnum's." 

Tom  shifted  in  his  chair. 

"  Some  day,  perhaps,  you  may  think  it  serious,"  he  said. 
"  I  daresay ;  a  man  with  goat's  legs  is  not  to  be  taken 
lightly,"  said  Evelyn.    "  And  he  sits  by  the  roadside,  doesn't 
he,  or  so  Browning  says,  playing  the  pipes?   What  pipes,  I 
wonder?   Bagpipes,  do  you  suppose?" 

Tom  laughed ;  his  equanimity  was  quite  undisturbed  even 
by  chaff  upon  what  was  to  him  the  most  serious  subject  in 
the  world. 

"  Ah,  who  was  frightened  at  a  nightingale  coming  to  sit 
on  my  finger  a  few  nights  ago  ?  Evelyn,  if  you  are  not  seri- 
ous, I'll  frighten  you  again." 

"  Well,  but  is  it  bagpipes  ?"  asked  he. 
Tom  suddenly  got  grave. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  53 

"  No,  it  sounded  more  like  a  glass  flute  very  far  off,"  he 
said.  "  No  explanations  are  forthcoming,  because  I  haven't 
got  any." 

Evelyn  was  silent  a  moment. 

"  And  when  did  you  hear  this  glass  flute  very  far  off?"  he 
asked. 

"  Two  mornings  ago,  up  above  the  house  in  that  big  clear- 
ing in  the  woods,"  he  answered.  "  I  know  nothing  more 
about  it.  It  frightened  me  rather,  and  then  it  stopped." 

"  What  did  it  play?"  asked  Philip. 

"  A  world-without-end  tune,"  he  said.  "  The  catechising 
is  now  over.  I  shall  go  to  bed,  I  think.  I  must  leave  to- 
morrow, Philip." 

"  I  hoped  you  would  stop  a  day  or  two  longer.  Must  you 
really  go  ?" 

"  I  must,  I  find." 

"  Appointment  with  Pan  in  the  New  Forest,"  remarked 
Evelyn,  dodging  the  cushion  that  was  thrown  at  him. 

Philip  had  to  spend  the  inside  of  the  next  day  in  London, 
and  left  with  Tom  Merivale  by  an  early  train,  leaving  Evelyn 
alone  with  his  mother,  Lady  Ellington,  and  Madge.  It  came 
about  very  naturally  that  Lady  Ellington  gravitated  to  Mrs. 
Home,  and  Evelyn,  finishing  his  background  sketch  in  front 
of  a  great  clump  of  purple  clematis,  found  Madge  on  the 
terrace  when  he  went  out,  with  an  unopened  book  on  her 
lap. 

The  book  had  lain  there,  indeed,  in  the  same  state  for  half 
an  hour  before  he  came,  for  Madge  had  been  very  fully  oc- 
cupied with  her  own  thoughts.  She  had  had  a  talk  to  her 
mother  the  night  before,  which  this  morning  seemed  to  her 
to  be  more  revealing  of  herself  than  even  her  own  confession 
to  Philip  in  their  stroll  on  the  terrace  had  been.  She  had 
told  her  just  what  she  had  told  him,  namely,  that  she  gave 
him  very  willingly  all  that  she  knew  of  herself,  liking, 
esteem,  respect,  adding  out  of  Philip's  mouth  that  this  more 
than  contented  him.  But  then  Lady  Ellington,  for  the  first 
time  perhaps  for  many  years,  had  made  a  strategical  error, 
allowing  her  emotion,  not  her  reason,  to  dictate  to  her,  and 
had  said — 

"  Ah,  Madge,  how  clever  of  you." 

She  had  seen  her  mistake  a  moment  afterwards,  and  just 
a  moment  too  late,  for  Madge  had  asked  the  very  simple 


54  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

question  "  Why  ?"  And  the  unsatisfactory  nature  of  her 
mother's  reply  had  given  her  food  for  thought. 

For  Lady  Ellington  had  applauded  as  clever  what  was  to 
her  the  very  rudiment  of  honour,  and  she  had  supposed  that 
her  mother  would  say. "  How  very  stupid  of  you."  Clearly, 
then,  while  extremely  uncalculating  to  herself,  Madge  had 
succeeded  in  giving  the  impression  of  calculation  to  one  who, 
she  well  knew,  calculated.  What,  then,  she  asked  herself, 
was  the  secret  of  this  love  of  which  she  was  ignorant,  that 
rendered  her  confession  of  ignorance  so  satisfactory  a  reply? 

Effusive  pleasure  on  her  mother's  part  at  the  termination 
of  this  recital  had  not  consoled  her.  Somehow,  according 
to  Lady  Ellington's  view,  an  almost  quixotic  honesty  ap- 
peared clever.  And  it  was  over  this  riddle  that  she  was  puz- 
zling when  Evelyn  appeared,  with  brilliance,  so  to  speak, 
streaming  from  him.  Brilliance  certainly  streamed  from  his 
half- finished  sketch,  and  brilliance  marked  his  exposition 
of  it. 

"  Oh,  I  lead  a  dog's  life,"  he  said,  as  he  planted  his  easel 
down  on  the  gravel.  "  Do  you  know  Lady  Taverner,  for 
whom  this  is  to  be  a  background  ?  No  ?  I  congratulate  you. 
She  is  pink,  simply  pink,  like  a  phlox,  with  butter-coloured 
hair,  probably  acquired.  Well,  put  a  pat  of  butter  and  a 
phlox  on  a  purple  plate,  and  you  will  see  that  the  phlox  is 
pinker  than  ever  and  the  butter  more  buttery.  Therefore, 
since  I  really  am  very  thorough,  I  make  a  sketch  of  clematis 
to  see  how  the  flowers  really  grow,  and  shall  plaster  her  with 
them — masses  behind  her,  sapphires  round  her  neck ;  and  a 
pink  Jewess  in  the  middle,"  he  added,  in  a  tone  of  extraordi- 
nary irritation. 

Madge  let  her  book  slide  to  the  ground. 

"  Do  you  want  to  be  talked  to  or  not?"  she  asked.  "  If 
you  don't,  say  so,  and  I  will  go  away." 

Evelyn  looked  up  from  his  purple  clematis. 

"  I  lead  a  dog's  life,"  he  said,  "  but  sometimes  somebody 
throws  me  a  bone.  So  throw  me  one." 

"  You  seem  to  growl  over  it,"  said  she. 

"  I  know  I  do.  That  is  because,  though  I  lead  a  dog's  life, 
nobody  shall  take  my  bone  from  me." 

He  bit  the  end  of  his  brush. 

"  And  the  filthy  thing  casts  purple  shadows  upwards."  he 
said.  "At  least  the  sun  shines  on  the  purple,  and  reflects 


THE-  ANGEL    OF    PAIN  55 

the  purple  on  leaves  that  overhang  it.  I  wish  I  had  been 
born  without  any  sense  of  colour.  I  should  have  made  such 
ripping  etchings." 

Madge  had  no  immediate  reply  to  this,  and  he  painted  for 
some  ten  minutes  in  silence.  She  had  picked  up  her  book 
again,  and  read  the  words  of  it — reading  it  could  not  be 
called. 

"  You  haven't  given  me  many  bones,"  said  he  at  length. 

Madge  looked  up. 

"  I  know  I  haven't,"  she  said ;  "  but  seriously  I  considered 
if  I  had  got  anything  to  say,  and  found  I  hadn't.  So  I  de- 
cided to  say  nothing." 

Evelyn  dabbed  in  a  purple  star. 

"  But  surely  one  has  always  something  in  one's  mind,"  he 
said.  "  One  can't  help  that,  so  why  not  say  it?  A  penny  for 
your  thoughts  now." 

Madge  laughed. 

"  No,  they  are  worth  far  more.  In  fact,  they  are  not  in  the 
market,"  she  said. 

Evelyn  grew  portentously  grave. 

"  Mrs.  Gummidge,"  he  said. 

"  Oh,  what  do  you  mean  ?"  she  asked. 

"  You've  been  thinking  of  the  old  one,"  said  Evelyn. 
"  Philip." 

"  Quite  true,  I  was,"  she  said.    "  He  is  such  a  dear." 

"  So  glad  you  like  him,"  muttered  Evelyn,  again  frowning 
and  biting  his  brushes.  "  Lord  love  us,  what  a  blue  world 
it  is  this  morning!  There,  I  can't  paint  any  more  just  now." 

"  That's  rather  sudden,  isn't  it  ?" 

"  Oh,  I  always  stop  like  that,"  said  Evelyn.  "  I  go  on 
painting  and  painting,  and  then  suddenly  somebody  turns  a 
tap  off  in  my  head,  and  I've  finished.  I  can't  see  any  more, 
and  I  couldn't  paint  if  I  did.  I  suppose  the  day  will  come 
when  the  tap  will  be  turned  permanently  off.  Shortly  after- 
wards I  shall  be  seen  to  jump  off  Westminster  Bridge.  I 
only  hope  nobody  will  succeed  in  rescuing  me." 

"  I  will  try  to  remember  if  I  happen  to  be  there,"  said  she. 

Evelyn  put  his  sketch  to  dry  in  the  shadow  of  the  terrace 
wall. 

"  The  law  is  so  ridiculous,"  he  said.  "  They  punish  you  if 
you  don't  succeed  in  committing  suicide  when  you  try  to, 
and  say  you  are  temporarily  insane  if  you  do.  Whereas  the 


56  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

bungler  is  probably  far  more  deranged  than  the  man  who 
does  the  job  properly." 

"  I  shall  never  commit  suicide,"  said  Madge  with  convic- 
tion. 

"  Ah,  wait  till  you  care  about  anything  as  much  as  I  care 
about  painting,"  said  Evelyn,  "  and  then  contemplate  living 
without  it.  Why,  I  should  cease  without  it.  The  world 
would  be  no  longer  possible ;  it  wouldn't,  so  to  speak,  hold 
water." 

"Ah,  do  you  really  feel  about  it  like  that?  said  she. 
"  Tell  me  what  it's  like,  that  feeling." 

Evelyn  laughed. 

"  You  ought  to  know,"  he  said,  "  because  I  imagine  it's 
like  being  permanently  in  love." 

Here  was  as  random  an  arrow  as  was  ever  let  fly ;  he  had 
been  unconscious  of  even  drawing  his  bow,  but  to  his  unut- 
terable surprise  it  went  full  and  straight  to  its  mark.  The 
girl's  face  went  suddenly  expressionless,  as  if  a  lamp  within 
had  been  turned  out,  and  she  rose  quickly,  with  a  half-stifled 
exclamation. 

"  Ah,  what  nonsense  we  are  talking,"  she  said  quickly. 

Evelyn  looked  at  her  in  genuine  distress  at  having  unwit- 
tingly caused  her  pain. 

"  Why,  of  course  we  are,"  he  said.  "  How  people  can  talk 
sense  all  day  beats  me.  They  must  live  at  such  high  pres- 
sure. Personally  I  preserve  any  precious  grains  of  sense  I 
may  have,  and  put  them  into  my  pictures.  Some  of  my  pic- 
tures simply  bristle  with  sense." 

The  startled  pain  had  not  died  out  of  Madge's  eyes,  but 
she  laughed,  and  Evelyn,  looking  at  her,  gave  a  little  staccato 
exclamation. 

"  And  what  is  it  now  ?"  she  asked. 

"  Why,  you — you  laughed  with  sad  eyes.  You  were  ex- 
traordinarily like  what  my  picture  will  be  at  that  moment." 

The  girl  glanced  away.  That  sudden,  unexplained  little 
stab  of  pain  she  had  experienced  had  left  her  nervous.  Her 
whole  nature  had  winced  under  it,  and,  like  a  man  who  feels 
some  sudden  moment  of  internal  agony  for  the  first  time,  she 
was  frightened ;  she  did  not  know  what  it  meant. 

"  I  expect  that  is  nonsense,  too,"  she  said.  "  At  least,  it  is 
either  nonsense  or  very  obvious,  for  I  suppose  when  anyone 
laughs,  however  fully  he  laughs,  there  is  always  something 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  57 

tragic  behind.  Ah,  how  nice  to  laugh  entirely  just  once  from 
your  hair  to  your  heels." 

"  Can't  you  do  that  ever?"  asked  Evelyn  sympathetically. 

"  No,  never,  nor  can  most  people,  I  think.  We  are  all 
haunted  houses ;  there  is  always  a  ghost  of  some  kind  tap- 
ping at  the  door  or  lurking  in  the  dusk.  Only  a  few  people 
have  no  ghosts.  I  should  think  your's  were  infinitesimal. 
You  are  much  to  be  envied." 

Evelyn  listened  with  all  his  ears  to  this ;  partly  because  he 
and  Madge  were  already  such  good  friends,  and  anything 
new  about  her  was  interesting;  partly  because,  though,  as 
he  had  said,  surface  was  enough  for  him — it  bore  so  very 
directly  on  his  coming  portrait  of  her. 

"  Yes,  I  expect  that  is  true,"  he  said ;  "  most  people  cer- 
tainly have  their  ghosts.  But  it  is  wise  to  wall  up  one's 
haunted  room,  is  it  not?" 

Madge  shook  her  head. 

"  Yes,  but  it  is  still  there,"  she  said. 

She  got  up  from  the  low  chair  in  which  she  was  sitting 
with  an  air  of  dismissing  the  subject  of  their  talk. 

"  Come,  ask  me  some  more  of  those  very  silly  riddles," 
she  said.  "  I  think  they  are  admirable  in  laying  ghosts.  So, 
too,  are  you,  Mr.  Dundas.  I  am  sure  you  will  not  resent  it 
when  I  say  it  is  because  you  are  so  frightfully  silly.  Ghosts 
cannot  stand  silliness." 

Evelyn  laughed. 

"  It  is  so  recuperative  to  be  silly,"  he  said,  "  because  it  re- 
quires no  effort  to  a  person  of  silly  disposition,  that  is  to  say. 
One  has  to  be  oneself.  How  easy!" 

She  opened  her  eyes  at  this. 

"  That  means  you  find  it  easy  to  be  natural,"  she  said. 
"  Why,  I  should  have  thought  that  was  almost  the  most  diffi- 
cult thing  in  the  world  to  be.  Now  a  pose  is  easy ;  it  is  like 
acting ;  you  have  got  to  be  somebody  else.  But  to  be  oneself ! 
One  has  to  know  what  one  is,  first  of  all,  one  has  to  know 
what  one  likes." 

Evelyn  laughed  again. 

"  Not  at  all.  You  just  have  to  shut  your  eyes,  take  a  long 
breath,  and  begin  talking.  Whatever  you  say  is  you." 

The  girl  shook  her  head. 

"Ah,  you  don't  understand,"  she  said.  "You,  you,  I, 
everybody,  are  really  all  sorts  of  people  put  into  one  en- 


58  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

velope.  Am  I  to  say  what  one  piece  of  me  is  prompting  me 
to  say  or  what  another  is  thinking  about?  And  it's  just  the 
same  with  one's  actions ;  one  hardly  ever  does  a  thing  which 
every  part  of  one  wants  to  do ;  one's  actions,  just  like  one's 
words,  are  a  sort  of  compromise  between  the  desires  of  one's 
different  components." 

She  paused  a  moment,  and,  with  a  woman's  quickness  of 
intuition  provided  against  that  which  might  possibly  be  in 
his  mind. 

"  Of  course,  when  a  big  choice  comes,"  she  said,  "  one's 
whole  being  has  to  consent.  But  one  only  has  half  a  dozen 
of  those  in  one's  life,  I  expect." 

She  had  guessed  quite  rightly,  for  the  idea  of  her  mar- 
riage had  inevitably  suggested  itself  to  Evelyn  when  she 
said  "  one  hardly  ever  does  a  thing  which  every  part  of  one 
wants  to  do."  But  in  the  addition  she  had  made  to  her 
speech  there  was  even  a  more  direct  allusion  to  it,  which 
necessarily  cancelled  from  his  mind  the  first  impression.  He 
was  bound,  in  fact,  to  accept  her  last  word.  But  he  fenced 
a  little  longer. 

"  I  don't  see  that  one  choice  can  really  be  considered  big- 
ger than  another,"  he  said.  "  The  smallest  choice  may  have 
the  hugest  consequences  which  one  could  never  have  fore- 
told, because  they  are  completely  outside  one's  own  control. 
I  may,  for  instance,  settle  to  go  up  to  London  to-morrow  by 
the  morning  train  or  the  later  one.  Well,  that  seems  a  small 
enough  choice,  but  supposing  one  train  has  a  frightful  acci- 
dent? What  we  can  control  is  so  infinitesimal  compared  to 
what  lies  outside  us — engine-drivers,  bullets,  anything  that 
may  kill." 

The  girl  shuddered  slightly. 

"  It  is  all  so  awful,"  she  said,  "  that.  An  ounce  of  lead,  a 
fall,  and  one  is  extinguished.  It  is  so  illogical,  too." 

"  Ah,  anything  that  happens  to  one's  body,  or  mind  either, 
is  that,"  said  Evelyn. 

"  How  ?  Surely  one  is  responsible  for  what  happens  to 
one's  mind." 

"  Yes,  in  the  way  of  learning  ancient  history,  if  we  choose, 
or  having  drawing-lessons.  But  all  the  big  things  that  can 
happen  to  one  are  outside  one's  control.  Love,  hate,  falling 
in  love  particularly  is,  I  imagine,  completely  independent  of 
one's  will." 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  59 

The  girl  gave  a  short,  rather  scornful  laugh. 

"  But  one  sees  a  determined  effort  to  marry  someone," 
she  said,  "  often  productive  of  a  very  passable  imitation  of 
falling  in  love." 

Had  she  boxed  his  ears,  Evelyn  could  not  have  been  more 
astonished.  If  this  was  an  example  of  shutting  the  eyes; 
drawing  a  long  breath  and  being  natural,  he  felt  that  there 
was  after  all  something  to  be  said  for  the  artificialities  in 
which  we  are  most  of  us  wont  to  clothe  ourselves.  There 
was  a  very  Marah  of  bitterness  in  the  girl's  tone;  he  felt, 
too,  as  if  all  the  time  she  had  concealed  her  hand,  so  to  speak, 
behind  her  back,  and  suddenly  thrown  a  squib  at  him,  an  ex- 
plosive that  cracked  and  jumped  and  jerked  In  a  thoroughly 
disconcerting  manner.  And  she  read  the  blankness  of  his 
face  aright,  and  hastened  to  correct  the  impression  she  had 
made. 

"  Did  you  ever  get  behind  a  door  when  you  were  a  child," 
she  asked,  "and  jump  out  calling  'Bo!'?  That  is  what  I 
did  just  then,  and  it  was  a  complete  success." 

He  looked  at  her  a  moment  with  his  head  on  one  side,  as 
if  studying  an  effect. 

"  But  it  was  you  who  jumped  out?"  he  asked  rather  perti- 
nently. 

"  Ah,  I  wouldn't  even  say  that,"  said  she.  "  I  think  it  was 
only  a  turnip-ghost  that  I  had  stuck  behind  the  door." 

Evelyn  gave  a  sort  of  triumphant  shout  of  laughter. 

"  Well,  for  the  moment  it  took  me  in,"  he  said.  "  I  really 
thought  it  was  you," 


FIFTH 


season  in  London  this  year  had  been  particularly 
amusing;  there  had  been  a  quite  unusually  large 
number  of  balls,  the  opera  had  been  one  perpetual 
coruscation  of  evening  stars  that  sang  together,  the 
conduct  of  May  and  early  June  from  a  meteorological  point 
of  view  had  been  impeccable,  and  in  consequence  when  the 
world  in  general  came  back  after  Whitsuntide  they  came  for 
the  most  part  with  a  pleasuarable  sense  of  returning  for  the 
second  act  of  a  play  of  which  the  first  had  been  really  en- 
chanting. Like  taking  one's  seat  again  for  a  play  was  the 
sense  that  various  unfinished  situations  which  had  been  left 
in  an  interesting  stage  would  now  move  forward  to  their 
dramatic  climaxes.  One,  however — this  was  rather  unfair 
— had  developed  itself  to  a  happy  close  in  the  country,  and 
Madge  Ellington's  engagement  to  Philip  was  generally  pro- 
nounced to  be  very  nice  indeed.  On  both  sides,  indeed,  it 
was  very  nice ;  for  it  had  not  been  seemly  that  a  millionaire 
should  be  unmarried  so  long,  and  on  the  other  hand  it  had 
not  been  seemly  that  Madge  should  be  unmarried  so  long. 
But  now  they  had  both  seen  the  error  of  their  ways,  and  had 
agreed  to  marry  each  other. 

And  above  all,  it  was  very  nice  for  Lady  Ellington,  about 
whom  it  was  generally  known  that  she  had  made  a  consider- 
able sum  in  speculation  lately.  To  do  that  was  universally 
recognised  as  being  an  assured  advance  towards  the  bank- 
ruptcy court,  but  to  have  captured  a  wealthy  son-in-law  who 
was  a  magnate  in  the  South  African  market  turned  her  steps, 
or  might  be  hoped  to  turn  them,  away  from  the  direction  of 
the  courts,  and  point  instead  towards  the  waters  of  comfort 
and  cash.  Another  thing  that  excited  to  some  extent  the  at- 
tention and  applause  of  the  world  was  a  certain  change  of 
demeanor  in  Madge,  which  was  very  noticeable  after  her 
return  to  London  from  the  Whitsuntide  holiday.  She  had 
always  been  rather  given  to  put  her  head  in  the  air,  and 
60 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  61 

appear  not  to  notice  people ;  but  her  engagement  had  brought 
to  her  an  added  geniality.  Hitherto  she  had  been  something 
of  "  a  maid  on  yonder  mountain  height,"  but  the  shepherd, 
Philip  Home,  had,  it  appeared,  convinced  her  that  "  love  was 
of  the  valley,"  and  she  had  quite  distinctly  come  down. 
This,  at  any  rate,  was  the  conclusion  at  which  Gladys  Elling- 
ton, the  present  Lady  Ellington,  arrived  within  two  minutes 
of  the  time  when  she  met  Madge  next. 

She  was  of  about  Madge's  own  age,  and  the  two,  in  spite 
of  old  Lady  Ellington's  rooted  dislike  to  her  nephew,  had 
always  been  friends.  Gladys  was  charmingly  pretty,  most 
successful  in  all  she  did,  and  universally  liked.  This  was 
only  fair,  for  she  took  immense  trouble  to  be  liked,  and  never 
did  an  ill-natured  thing  to  anyone,  unless  it  was  quite  cer- 
tain that  she  would  not  be  found  out.  She  had  come  to  tea 
on  the  afternoon  succeeding  Madge's  return  to  London,  and, 
though  she  professed  regrets  at  the  absence  of  Madge's 
mother,  was  really  delighted  to  find  her  friend  alone.  She 
had  a  perfect  passion  for  finding  things  out,  and  her  method 
of  doing  so  was  to  talk  with  extreme  volubility  herself,  so 
that  no  one  could  possibly  conjecture  that  she  had  any  object 
of  the  sort  in  her  mind.  But  her  pauses  were  well  calculated, 
and  her  questions  few,  while  with  regard  to  these,  she  always 
gave  the  appearance  of  not  attending  to  the  answers,  which 
further  disarmed  suspicion.  She  was,  however,  a  little  afraid 
of  Madge's  mother,  who  always  gave  her  the  idea  of  seeing 
through  her.  This  made  her  volubility  a  little  threadbare  at 
times,  and  consequently  she  bore  her  absence  with  more  than 
equanimity. 

"  Darling,  I  think  it  is  too  charming,"  she  was  saying, 
"  and  I  always  hoped  that  you  would  do  just  this.  Mr. 
Home  is  perfectly  adorable,  I  think,  and  though  it  sounds 
horribly  worldly  to  say  so,  it  is  an  advantage,  you  know,  to 
marry  a  very  rich  man.  We're  as  poor  as  mice,  you  see,  and 
so  I  know.  Yes,  please — a  cup  of  tea.  though  we're  told  now 
that  a  cup  of  tea  is  the  most  unwholesome  thing  in  the  world. 
And  you  had  a  nice  party  ?  Mrs.  Home,  too,  just  like  a  piece 
of  china  scented  with  lavender.  And  who  else  was  there  ?" 

"  Only  two  more  men,"  said  Madge,  "  Mr.  Merivale  and 
Mr.  Evelyn  Dundas." 

"  The  Hermit  of  the  New  Forest!"  cried  Gladys,  directing 
her  remarks  to  him  because  she  wished  to  hear  more  of  the 


62  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

other.  "  How  too  exciting !  He  lives  on  cherry  jam  and 
brown  bread,  does  he  not,  and  whistles  to  the  cows,  who  lay 
their  heads  on  his  shoulder  and  purr.  I  used  to  know  him  in 
the  old  days  before  he  was  a  hermit  at  all.  And  Mr.  Dundas, 
too !  Do  you  like  him  ?" 

"  Yes,  very  much,  very  much  indeed,"  said  Madge  grave- 
ly. "  He  is  such  a  child,  you  know,  and  he  makes  one  laugh 
because  he  is  so  silly.  He  is  going  to  do  my  portrait,  by  the 
way ;  mine  and  Philip's." 

"  How  delightful !  He  ought  to  make  a  really  wonderful 
thing  of  you,  dear  Madge.  Do  tell  me,  how  much  does  he 
charge  ?  I'm  dying  to  be  painted  by  him,  but  he  is  so  fright- 
fully expensive,  is  he  not  ?  And  you  liked  him  ;  what  a  good 
thing,  as  you  are  going  to  sit  to  him.  It  must  be  awful  being 
painted  by  a  man  who  irritates  you." 

Madge  laughed. 

"  He  doesn't  irritate  me  in  the  slightest,"  she  said.  "  In 
fact,  I  don't  think  I  ever  got  to  know  a  man  so  quickly.  I 
don't  know  how  it  is ;  somehow  he  is  like  clear  water.  You 
can  see  straight  to  the  bottom." 

Gladys  regarded  her  rather  closely  as  she  nibbled  with 
rather  a  bird-like  movement  at  a  sugared  bun. 

"  Madge,  you've  quite  changed,"  she  said.  "  You  are  ac- 
tually beginning  to  take  an  interest  in  your  fellow-creatures. 
That  is  so  wise  of  you.  Of  course  Evelyn  Dundas  is  adora- 
ble; I'm  hopelessly  in  love  with  him  myself,  but  I  should 
have  thought  he  was  just  the  sort  of  man  who  would  not 
have  interested  you  in  the  least.  Nor  would  he  have  a  few 
weeks  ago.  Dearest,  you've  stepped  down  from  your  pedes- 
tal, where  you  really  used  to  be  rather  a  statue,  you  know, 
like  Galatea,  and  it  does  improve  you  so.  I  saw  it  the  mo- 
ment I  came  into  the  room.  And  just  falling  in  love  has 
done  it  all." 

A  sudden  look  of  pain  came  over  Madge's  face,  and  her 
companion,  with  a  well-chosen  pause,  waited  for  her  to  ex- 
press it  in  words. 

"  Ah,  Gladys,  are  you  sure  you  are  right?"  she  said.  "  Be- 
cause I  think  I  must  tell  you  this  even  as  I  told  Philip — I 
don't  feel  as  if  I  had  fallen  in  love.  I  like  him,  I  esteem  and 
respect  him,  but — but  it  isn't  what  I  expected.  I'm  not — I 
hate  the  word — but  I'm  not  thrilled." 

Gladys  rustled  sympathetically,  and  Madge  went  on: 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  63 

"  I  had  it  all  out  with  my  mother,  too,"  she  said,  "  who 
very  sensibly  said  that  as  I  had  lived  twenty-five  years  with- 
out falling  in  love  in  that  sort  of  sense,  I  was  very  unlikely 
to  begin  now.  On  the  other  hand,  she  said  that  it  was  much 
better  that  I  should  be  married  than  remain  single.  And  so 
I  am  going  to  marry  Philip  Home." 

Again  Gladys  rustled  sympathetically,  and  gave  a  mur- 
mured "  Yes,"  for  Madge  evidently  had  more  to  say. 

"  Anyhow,  I  have  been  honest  with  him,"  she  said,  "  and  I 
have  told  him  that.  And  he  seems  to  think  that  it  can  easily 
form  the  basis  for  happiness,  and  accepts  it.  But  tell  me,  am 
I  frightfully  cold-blooded?  And  have  I  any  right  to  marry 
him?" 

Gladys'  quick  little  brain  had  hopped  over  a  dozen  aspects 
of  this  question,  and  pecked,  so  to  speak,  at  a  dozen  different 
fruits,  while  Madge  was  speaking;  but  with  a  whirr  of 
wings  she  was  back  again,  up  to  time  as  usual. 

"  No,  not  the  least  cold-blooded,  and  you  have  every  right 
to  marry  him,"  she  said.  "  For  you  may  be  quite  sure  that 
you  soon  will  be  in  love  with  him,  because  I  assure  you  that 
already  it  has  made  an  enormous  difference  in  you.  How  do 
I  know  that?  I  can't  possibly  tell  you,  any  more  than  you 
can  tell  exactly  why  a  person  looks  ill.  You  say  her  face 
looks  drawn.  What's  drawn  ?  Why,  the  same  as  ill.  You've 
woke  up,  dearest ;  you've  come  to  life.  Life !  there's  nothing1 
in  the  world  so  good  as  that." 

Madge  leaned  forward,  and  spoke  more  eagerly. 

"  Yes,  you're  right,"  she  said,  "  though  I  don't  know  that 
your  reason  is  right.  I  have  somehow  come  to  life.  But  it 
puzzles  me  a  little  to  know  how  it  has  happened,  or  why." 

Gladys  nodded  her  head  with  an  air  of  wisdom,  and  got 
up.  At  this  time  of  the  year  she  seldom  spent  more  than  an 
hour  in  any  one  place,  and  still  more  seldom  with  only  one 
person,  and  both  Madge  and  Madge's  house  had  now  en- 
joyed their  full  share  of  her  time. 

"  Ah,  I  am  very  bad  at  riddles,"  she  said,  "  and,  besides, 
none  of  us  know  '  why '  about  anything,  and,  on  the  whole, 
reasons  and  motives  matter  very  little.  Things  that  happen 
are  so  numerous  and  so  interesting  that  one  has  literally  not 
time  to  probe  into  them  and  ask  how  and  why.  And  after 
all,  dear,  when  anything  so  very  nice  has  happened  as  your 
engagement,  which  too  has  brought  such  a  gain  to  you  in 


64  THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

yourself,  I  am  more  than  content,  and  so  should  you  be,  to 
accept  that  as  it  is.  Now,  I  must  simply  fly ;  I  am  dining  out 
and  going  to  the  opera,  and  to  a  dance  afterwards.  What  a 
pity  there  are  not  forty-eight  hours  in  every  day." 

This  regret  was  subsequently  shared  by  Madge  herself, 
who  found  that  the  life  of  a  young  woman  who  is  going  to 
be  married  in  six  weeks'  time,  for  the  wedding  had  been  fixed 
for  the  end  of  July,  implies  a  full  engagement  book.  And  in 
addition  to  the  ordinary  calls  on  her  time,  hours  were  further 
claimed  from  her  by  Evelyn  Dundas,  who  apparently  had  in- 
sisted to  another  sitter  on  the  prior  rights  of  this  subsequent 
engagement,  and  announced  himself  free  to  begin  her  por- 
trait at  once,  to  give  her  sittings  whenever  she  could  sit,  and 
finish  it  as  quickly  as  his  powers  of  brush  would  permit  him. 
His  impetuousness,  as  usual,  swept  away  all  difficulties,  and 
before  a  fortnight  had  elapsed,  Madge  had  already  given 
him  four  sittings,  and  the  picture  itself  was  beginning  to  live 
and  breathe  on  his  canvas. 

These  sittings,  or  rather  the  artist's  manners  and  moods 
during  them,  were  strangely  various.  Sometimes  for  half- 
an-hour,  as  Madge  complained,  he  would  do  nothing  but 
stare  at  her,  grunting  to  himself,  and  biting  the  ends  of  his 
brushes.  Then  in  a  moment  all  would  be  changed,  and  in- 
stead of  staring  and  grunting  with  idle  hands,  he  would 
glance  at  her  and  record,  record  and  glance  again,  absorbed 
in  the  passion  of  his  creation,  whistling  sometimes  gently  to 
himself,  or  at  other  times  silent,  but  with  a  smiling  mouth. 
Then  that  wind  of  inspiration  that  bloweth  where  it  listeth 
would  leave  him  again,  and  he  would  declare  roundly  that 
he  did  not  know  what  she  was  like,  or  what  his  picture  was 
like,  but  that  the  only  thing  quite  certain  was  that  his  picture 
was  not  like  her.  Then,  even  while  these  gloomy  announce- 
ments were  on  his  lips,  even  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence,  he 
would  murmur  to  himself,  "  Oh,  I  see,"  and  the  swish  of 
the  happy  brush  would  alone  break  the  silence.  At  other 
times  there  was  no  silence  to  break,  and  from  the  time  she 
stepped  up  on  to  the  platform  till  when  she  left  it,  he  would 
pour  out  a  perfect  flood  of  inconsequent  nonsense.  Or, 
again,  the  hours  passed  in  unbroken  conversation  between 
the  two,  the  talk  sometimes  flitting  like  a  butterfly  over  all 
the  open  flowers  of  life,  but  at  other  times,  as  it  had  done 
once  or  twice  at  Philip's  house,  dropping  suddenly  into  the 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  65 

heart  of  things,  finding  sometimes  honey  there,  but  some- 
times shadows  only. 

A  sitting  of  this  latter  kind  had  just  come  to  an  end,  and 
Evelyn,  after  seeing  his  sitter  into  her  carriage,  had  returned 
to  his  studio,  still  palette  in  hand,  meaning  to  work  for  an 
hour  at  the  background.  Certainly  in  this  short  space  of 
time  he  had  made  admirable  progress,  and  he  knew  within 
himself  that  this  was  to  be  a  landmark  of  his  work,  and  up 
to  the  present,  at  any  rate,  his  high-water  mark.  He  had 
drawn  the  girl  standing  very  upright,  as  was  her  wont,  but 
with  head  a  little  thrown  back,  and  her  face,  eyes,  and 
mouth  alike  laughed.  It  was  a  daring  conception,  but  the 
happiness  of  the  execution  was  worthy  of  it,  and  the  fore- 
shortening of  the  face  owing  to  the  throw-back  of  the  head, 
the  drawing,  too,  of  the  open  mouth  and  of  the  half-closed 
eyes  was  a  triumph.  Her  figure  was  shown  in  white  evening- 
dress,  with  hands  locked  together,  carrying  a  feather  fan, 
and  arms  at  full  length  in  front  of  her ;  over  her  shoulders, 
half  thrown  back,  was  a  scarlet  opera  cloak,  the  one  note  of 
high  colour  in  all  the  scheme.  Behind  her,  on  the  wall,  he 
had  introduced,  by  one  of  those  daring  feats  that  were 
labelled  by  detractors  as  "  cheeky,"  but  by  any  who  estimated 
fairly  the  excellence  of  the  execution,  a  round  gilt-framed 
mirror,  with  a  convex  glass  in  it,  on  which  was  distortedly 
reflected  the  room  itself  and  the  back  of  the  girl's  figure.  It 
was  at  this  that  he  had  returned  to  work  now. 

Evelyn's  studio,  like  all  rooms  much  used  by  anyone  who 
has  at  all  a  vivid  personality,  had  caught  much  of  the  char- 
acter of  its  owner.  He  had  made  it  out  of  the  top  floor  in 
his  house  in  the  King's  Road,  by  throwing  all  the  attics  into 
one  big  room.  Often  for  a  whole  day  he  would  not  stir  from 
it  till  it  was  too  dark  to  paint,  having  a  tray  of  lunch  brought 
him  which  sometimes  he  would  savagely  devour,  at  other 
times  leave  untouched  till  he  was  literally  faint  with  hunger. 
It  was  easy  to  see,  too,  how  the  room  had  grown,  so  to  speak, 
how  it  had  picked  up  his  characteristics.  The  big  divan,  for 
instance,  in  the  window,  piled  with  brightly-coloured  cush- 
ions, had  evidently  been  of  the  early  furniture,  a  remnant 
of  imperishable  childhood;  so,  too,  no  doubt,  was  the  open 
Dutch-tiled  fireplace,  the  Chippendale  table,  the  few  big1 
chairs  that  stood  about,  and  the  Japanese  screen  by  the  door. 
After  that,  however,  all  sorts  of  various  tastes  showed  them- 


66 

selves.  A  heap  of  dry  modelling  clay  in  one  corner  recorded 
a  fit  of  despair,  when  he  had  asserted  that  the  only  real  form 
of  art  was  form  itself,  not  colour ;  a  violin  with  two  strings 
missing  denoted  that  after  hearing  Sarasate  he  was  con- 
vinced, for  several  hours  at  least,  that  the  music  of  strings 
was  alone  the  flower  worth  plucking,  and  showed  also  a 
delightful  conviction  that  it  was  never  too  late  to  learn, 
though  the  broken  strings  might  imply  that  it  was  now  too 
late  to  mend.  A  set  of  Punch,  complete  from  the  beginning, 
lay  like  a  heap  of  morraine  stones  round  the  sofa,  a  bag  of 
rusty  golf-clubs  stood  in  a  corner,  and  behind  the  Japanese 
screen  leaned  a  bicycle  on  which  dust  had  collected,  an  evi- 
'dence  of  its  being,  for  the  time  at  any  rate,  out  of  date  far 
as  its  owner  was  concerned.  But  three  months  before  or 
three  months  afterwards  a  visitor  might  scarcely  have  recog- 
nised the  room  again.  A  portrait  might  have  been  finished, 
and  with  disengaged  eyes  Evelyn  would  survey  what  he 
would  certainly  call  his  pigsty.  The  bicycle  would  be  sent 
to  the  cellar  with  the  golf  clubs  slung  on  to  it,  the  heap  of 
modelling  clay  be  dumped  on  the  dustheap,  the  Japanese 
screen  banished  to  the  kitchen,  because  for  the  moment  Jap- 
anese art  was  a  parody  and  a  profanation,  and  the  violin, 
perhaps,  have  its  strings  mended.  Or  again,  instead  of  the 
Japanese  screen  being  banished,  Japan  might  have  flooded 
the  whole  studio  as  its  armies  flood  Manchuria,  and  an 
equally  certain  and  uncompromising  gospel  pronounce  that 
it  alone  was  good. 

It  was  then  to  this  temple  of  contradictions  that  Evelyn 
returned,  three  steps  to  a  stride,  after  seeing  Madge  off. 
The  figure  was  right ;  he  felt  sure  of  that,  but  the  tone  of  the 
background  somehow  was  not  yet  quite  attuned  to  it.  Above 
all,  the  mirror  must  be  bright  burnished  gold,  not  dull,  for 
the  flame  of  the  cloak,  if  it  was  the  only  note  of  high  colour 
in  .the  picture,  consumed  itself,  burned  away  ineffectually, 
and  it  was  with  a  heart  that  beat  fast,  not  only  from  his  gal- 
lop upstairs,  but  from  excitement  in  this  creation  that  was 
his,  that  he  again  stood  before  the  picture.  Yes,  that  was  it ; 
another  high  light  was  necessary. 

For  a  moment  he  looked  at  the  laughing  face  on  his  can- 
vas, almost  laughing  himself.  Then  all  on  a  sudden  his 
laughter  died,  the  need  of  his  picture  for  another  high  light 
tfied  too,  for  though  his  eyes  were  looking  on  his  own  pre- 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  6Z 

sentment  of  Madge,  it  was  Madge  herself  that  his  soul  saw. 
And  even  as  his  eyes  loved  the  work  of  his  hands,  so  he  knew: 
in  a  burning  flash  of  self-revelation  that  his  soul  loved  her. 
Up  till  now,  up  till  this  very  moment,  he  had  not  known  that 
this  was  so ;  that  it  was  possible  he  had  long  since  recog- 
nised, that  the  possibility  was  reaching  its  tentacles  out  into 
regions  of  the  probable  he  had  recognised,  so  to  speak,  out 
of  the  corner  of  his  eye,  had  recognised,  but  cut  it,  and  now 
came  the  knowledge. 

Evelyn  gave  a  great  sigh,  raising  his  hands,  one  with  the 
palette  on  the  thumb,  the  other  with  the  brush  it  held,  to  full 
stretch,  and  let  them  fall  again,  and  stood  still  in  front  of  his 
own  inimitable  portrait,  drinking  in  no  longer  with  the  artist's 
eye  only,  but  with  the  eye  of  the  lover,  the  incomparable 
beauty  of  his  beloved.  That  rush  of  sudden  knowledge,  so  im- 
petuous, so  overwhelming,  for  the  moment  drowned  all  else ; 
it  did  not  enter  his  head  to  consider  "  What  next  ?"  The  pres- 
ent moment  was  so  blindingly  bright  that  everything  that  lay 
outside  it  was  in  impenetrable  shadow.  The  intimate  rela- 
tions into  which  he  was  thrown  with  the  girl,  by  reason  of 
this  portrait;  the  fact  that  she  was  engaged,  and  that  to  his 
best  friend,  did  not  at  first  have  any  existence  in  his  mind ; 
he  but  looked  at  this  one  fact,  that  he  loved  her  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  all  else.  Then,  as  must  always  happen,  came  reac- 
tion from  the  ecstatic  moment,  and  in  the  train  of  reaction, 
like  some  grey  ghost,  thought.  But  even  thought  for  the 
time  was  gilded  by  the  light  of  that  central  sun,  and  it  was 
long  before  he  could  frame  the  situation  in  the  bounding 
lines  of  life  and  conduct.  For  love  is  a  force  which  is  impa- 
tient of  opposition,  and  against  opposition  it  will  hurl  itself, 
like  a  wild  bird  against  the  wires  of  its  cage,  careless  of 
whether  it  is  dashed  to  pieces,  knowing  only  the  overwhelm- 
ing instinct  and  need  of  liberty,  to  gain  which  death  is  but 
the  snap  of  a  careless  finger. 

Then,  almost  with  a  laugh  at  himself,  came  that  most  im- 
portant factor  that  he  had  overlooked.  For  a  couple  of  min- 
utes his  egoism  had  run  away  with  him,  taking  the  bit  in  its 
teeth,  and  the  thought  that  he  loved  her,  that  he  needed  her, 
had  not  only  been  uppermost,  but  alone  in  his  mind.  But 
what  of  her  ?  She  was  engaged  to  Philip,  and  shortly  to  be 
married  to  him,  and  he  himself  was  merely  to  be  relegated 
to  that  somewhat  populous  class  of  "  odd  man  out."  That 


68  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

ebb  from  the  full  flood  of  his  passion  was  swift ;  it  came  in 
a  moment,  as  swiftly  as  the  other  had  come.  So  that  was 
all  that  was  left  of  him,  all  that  was  possible ;  that  he  should 
just  stand  aside  while  the  other  two  went  on  their  way,  not 
daring  even  to  touch  the  hem  of  her  garment,  for  she  woald 
most  surely  draw  it  away  from  him.  That  clearly  was  the 
logical  outcome,  but  logical  as  it  was,  not  a  single  fibre  of  his 
inmost  self  accepted  it.  That,  the  one  thin^  which  to  the 
reasonable  mind  must  assuredly  happen  was  to  him  the  one 
thing  which  could  not  possibly  happen.  The  very  strength 
of  his  newly-awakened  love  was  the  insuperable  bar  to  it; 
it  could  not  be,  for  what — and  the  question  seemed  to  him- 
self at  that  moment  perfectly  unanswerable — what  on  earth 
was  to  happen  to  him  in  that  case?  Here  was  the  Pagan, 
the  interesting  survival,  as  Tom  Merivale  had  called  him, 
most  unmistakably  surviving,  shouting,  as  it  were,  that  its 
own  happiness,  its  own  need,  was  the  one  thing  which  the 
rest  of  the  world  must  accept  and  respect.  And,  since  the 
only  way  in  which  due  acceptation  could  be  secured  for  it 
was  conditional  on  Madge's  loving  him,  that  had  to  happen 
also.  Yes,  nothing  else  would  do ;  she  had  to  love  him. 

This  reasoning,  if  one  can  call  by  so  deliberate  a  word  these 
leaping  conclusions,  was  not  any  act  of  reflecting  egoism. 
His  emotions,  his  whole  being,  had  been  suddenly  stirred, 
and  there  necessarily  rose  to  the  surface  the  sediment,  so  to 
speak,  of  that  which  dwelt  in  its  depths.  The  whole  course 
and  habit  of  his  past  life  no  doubt  was  responsible  for  what 
was  there,  but  he  was  no  more  responsible  at  this  particular 
moment  for  the  thoughts  and  conclusions  that  leaped  in  fire 
into  his  mind  than  is  a  man  who  is  suddenly  startled  respon- 
sible for  starting ;  his  nerves  have  acted  without  the  dictation 
of  his  brains.  But  with  Evelyn,  as  the  minutes  passed,  and 
he  still  sat  there  with  heightened  colour  and  flashing  eyes, 
looking  at  his  unfinished  picture,  he  ceased  to  be  comparable 
to  a  suddenly  startled  man ;  the  thoughts  that  had  sprung 
unbidden  to  his  mind  were  not  put  away;  they  remained 
there,  and  they  grew  in  brightness.  His  conscious  reflections 
endorsed  the  first  instinctive  impulse. 

It  so  happened  that  he  had  arranged  to  go  down  that  after- 
noon to  spend  a  couple  of  nights  in  the  New  Forest  with  the 
Hermit,  but  when  this  engagement  was  again  remembered 
by  him,  it  seemed  to  him  at  first  impossible  to  go.  What  he 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  69 

had  learned  in  this  last  hour  was  a  thing  so  staggering  that 
he  felt  as  if  all  the  affairs  of  life,  social  intercourse,  the  dis- 
cussion of  this  subject  or  of  that,  as  if  any  subject  but  one 
contained  even  the  germ  or  protoplasm  of  importance,  had 
become  impossible.  But  go  or  stay,  everything  was  impos- 
sible except  to  win  Madge's  love.  Then  another  impossi- 
bility, bigger  perhaps  than  any,  made  its  appearance,  for  the 
most  impossible  thing  of  all  was  to  be  alone,  anything  was 
more  endurable  than  that;  and  side  by  side  with  that  rose 
another,  namely,  the  impossibility  of  keeping  his  knowledge 
to  himself.  He  must,  he  felt,  tell  somebody,  and  of  all  peo- 
ple in  the  world  the  Hermit  was  the  person  whom  it  would 
be  most  easy  to  tell. 

Then  a  sort  of  pale  image  of  Philip  came  into  his  mind. 
He  was  conscious  of  no  disloyalty  to  him,  because  he  was 
incapable  of  thinking  of  him  at  all,  except  as  of  somebody, 
a  vague  somebody,  who  dwelt  among  the  shadows  outside 
the  light.  Mrs.  Home  was  no  more,  nobody  was  anything 
more  than  a  dweller  in  these  shadows.  Nor,  indeed,  had  he 
been  able  to  think  of  Philip  directly,  concentratedly,  would 
he  have  accused  himself  of  disloyalty;  either  Madge  would 
never  love  himself,  in  which  case  no  harm  was  done  to  any- 
one, or  she  would  do  so,  in  which  case  her  marriage  with 
Philip  was  an  impossibility — an  impossibility,  too,  the  exist- 
ence of  which  had  better  be  found  out  before  it  was  legally 
confirmed.  Yet  all  this  but  quivered  through  his  mind  and 
was  gone  again,  he  caught  but  as  passing  a  glimpse  of  the 
world  of  life  and  conduct  as  he  caught  of  the  stations  that 
his  train  thundered  through  in  its  westerly  course ;  they  but 
brushed  by  his  inward  eye,  and  had  passed  before  they  had 
ever  been  focussed  or  seen  with  anything  like  clearness. 

The  Hermit  had  once  told  him,  it  may  be  remembered, 
that  he  wanted  deepening,  and  Evelyn  on  that  occasion  had 
enunciated  the  general  principle  that  he  had  no  use  for  deeps, 
the  surface  being  sufficient  for  his  needs.  And  even  now, 
though  his  egotism  was  so  all-embracing,  it  was  in  no  sense 
whatever  profound.  He  did  not  probe  himself,  it  was  of 
the  glittering  surface  alone  on  which  shone  this  sun  of  love 
that  he  was  conscious.  Deeps,  perhaps,  might  lie  beneath, 
but  they  were  unexplored;  life  like  a  pleasure  boat  with 
shallow-dipping  oars  went  gaily  across  him.  Indeed  it  was 
probable  that  before  the  depth — if  depths  were  there — could 


170  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

be  sounded  the  sun,  so  to  speak,  would  have  to  go  in,  for 
with  that  dazzle  on  the  water  it  was  impossible  to  see  what 
lay  below. 

Tom  Merivale's  cottage,  which  had  begun  life  as  two  cot- 
tages, stood  very  solitary  some  mile  or  two  outside  Brocken- 
hurst,  and  though  the  high  road  passed  within  a  few  hun- 
dred yards  of  it,  it  was  impossible  to  conceive  a  place  that 
more  partook  of  the  essential  nature  of  a  hermitage.  Be- 
tween it  and  the  high  road  lay  a  field,  with  only  a  rough 
track  across  it;  beyond  that,  and  nearer  to  the  house,  an 
orchard,  while  a  huge  box-hedge,  compact  and  homogeneous 
with  the  growth  and  careful  clipping  of  many  years,  was  to 
any  who  wished  to  be  shut  off  from  the  outer  world  a  bar 
as  impenetrable  as  a  ring  of  fire.  Immediately  beyond  this 
stood  the  cottage  itself,  looking  away  from  the  road  ;  in  front 
a  strip  of  garden  led  down  to  the  little  river  Fawn,  and 
across  the  river  lay  a  great  open  expanse  of  heath,  through 
•which,  like  a  wedge,  came  down  a  big  triangular  wood  of 
beech-trees.  It  was  this  way,  over  the  garden  and  the  open 
forest,  that  the  cottage  looked ;  not  a  house  of  any  kind  was 
in  sight,  arid  one  might  watch,  like  a  ship-wrecked  mariner 
for  a  sail,  for  any  sign  of  human  life,  and  yet  in  a  long  sum- 
mer day  perhaps  the  watcher  would  see  nothing  to  tell  him 
that  he  was  not  alone  as  far  as  humankind  went  in  this  wood- 
land world.  Tom  had  built  out  a  long  deep  verandah  that 
ran  the  whole  length  of  the  cottage  on  the  garden  front; 
brick  pillars  at  the  two  corners  supported  a  wooden  roof,  and 
a  couple  of  steps  led  down  into  the  garden.  Down  the  cen- 
tre of  that  ran  a  pergola,  over  which  climbed  in  tangled  lux- 
uriance the  long-limbed  tribes  of  climbing  roses.  Ramblers 
spilt  their  crimson  clusters  over  it,  or  lay  in  streaks  and  balls 
of  white  and  yellow  foam,  while  carmine  pillar  seemed  to 
struggle  in  their  embrace,  and  honeysuckle  cast  loving  ten- 
drils round  them  both  and  kissed  them  promiscuously.  And 
though  a  gardener  might  have  deplored  this  untended  riot 
of  vegetation,  yet  even  the  most  orderly  of  his  fraternity 
could  not  have  failed  to  admire.  Nature  and  this  fruitful 
soil  and  the  warm,  soft  air  to  which  frost  was  a  stranger,  had 
taken  matters  into  their  own  hands,  and  the  result,  though 
as  fortuitous  apparently  as  the  splashed  glories  of  a  sunset, 
had  yet  a  sunset's  lavishness  and  generosity  of  colour.  On 
each  side  of  this  pergola  lay  a  small  lawn  of  well-tended  turf, 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  71 

and  a  shrubbery  on  one  side  of  lilacs  and  syringa  and  on  the 
other  a  tall  brick  wall  with  a  deep  garden  bed  below  it  gave 
a  fragrant  frame  to  the  whole.  The  Hermit's  avowal,  in- 
deed, that  for  the  last  year  he  had  done  nothing  except  car- 
pentering and  gardening  implied  a  good  deal  of  the  latter, 
for  the  turf,  as  has  been  stated,  was  beautifully  rolled  and 
cut,  and  the  beds  showed  evidence  of  seed-time  and  weeding, 
and  had  that  indefinable  but  unmistakable  air  of  being  zeal- 
ously cared  for.  But  since  such  operations  were  concerned 
with  plants,  no  principle  was  broken. 

Evelyn  arrived  here  soon  after  six,  and  found  himself  in 
undisturbed  possession.  Mr.  Merivale,  so  said  his  servant, 
had  gone  off  soon  after  breakfast  that  morning  and  had  not 
yet  returned.  His  guest,  however,  had  been  expected,  and 
he  himself  would  be  sure  to  be  in  before  long.  Indeed  in  a 
few  minutes  his  cry  of  welcome  to  Evelyn  sounded  from  the 
lower  end  of  the  garden,  and  he  left  his  long  chair  in  the 
verandah  and  went  down  through  the  pergola  to  meet  him. 

"  Ah,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  Tom,  "  it  is  delightful  to  see 
you.  You  have  come  from  London,  have  you  not,  where 
there  are  so  many  people  and  so  few  things.  I  have  been 
thinking  about  London,  and  you  have  no  idea  how  remote  it 
seems.  And  how  is  the  picture  getting  on — Miss  Elling- 
ton's, I  mean  ?" 

Evelyn  looked  at  him  with  his  direct,  luminous  gaze. 
Though  he  had  come  down  here  with  the  object  of  telling  his 
friend  what  had  happened,  he  found  that  at  this  first  moment 
of  meeting  him,  he  was  incapable  of  making  his  tongue  go 
on  its  errand. 

"  Ah,  the  portrait,"  he  said ;  "  it  really  is  getting  on  well. 
Up  to  this  morning,  at  any  rate,  I  have  put  there  what  I  have 
meant  to  put  there,  and,  which  is  rarer  with  me,  I  have  not 
put  there  anything  which  I  did  not  mean.  Do  you  see  how 
vastly  more  important  that  is  ?" 

The  Hermit  had  passed  his  day  in  the  open  merely  in  shirt 
and  trousers,  but  his  coat  was  lying  in  a  hammock  slung 
between  two  pillars  of  the  pergola,  and  he  put  it  on. 

"  Why,  of  course,"  he  said,  "  a  thing  which  ought  not  to 
be  there  poisons  the  rest;  anything  put  in  which  should  be 
left  out  sets  the  whole  thing  jarring.  That's  exactly  why  I 
left  the  world  you  live  in.  There  was  so  much  that  shouldn't 
have  been  there,  from  my  point  of  view  at  least." 


72  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

Evelyn  laughed. 

"  But  if  we  all  left  out  all  that  each  of  us  thinks  shouldn't 
be  there,  there  would  be  precious  little  left  in  the  world,"  he 
said.  "  For  instance,  I  should  leave  out  Lady  Ellington 
without  the  slightest  question." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"  And  when  the  portrait  is  finished  she,  no  doubt,  would 
Jeave  out  me,"  he  added,  with  charming  candour. 

"  Quite  so,"  said  Merivale ;  "  and  since  I,  not  being  an 
uncontrolled  despot,  could  not  '  leave  out'  people,  which  I 
suppose  is  a  soft  way  of  saying  terminate  their  existence,  I 
went  away  instead  to  a  place  where  they  were  naturally  left 
out,  where  for  me  their  existence  was  terminated.  It  is  all 
part  of  the  simplifying  process." 

They  had  established  themselves  in  the  verandah  again, 
where  a  silent-footed  man  was  laying  the  table  for  dinner ; 
and  it  struck  Evelyn  for  the  moment  as  an  inconsistency  that 
the  tablecloth  should  be  so  fine  and  the  silver  so  resplendent. 

"  But  in  your  simplification,"  said  Evelyn,  indicating  the 
table,  "  you  don't  leave  out  that  sort  of  thing." 

"  No,  because  if  I  once  opened  the  question  of  whether  I 
should  live  on  the  bare  necessities  of  life,  or  allow  myself,  so 
to  speak,  a  little  dripping  on  my  bread,  the  rest  of  my  life 
would  be  spent  in  settling  infinitesimal  points  which  I  really 
don't  think  much  matter.  I  could  no  doubt  sell  my  silver  and 
realize  a  few  hundred  pounds,  and  give  that  away.  But  I 
don't  think  it  matters  much." 

"  All  the  same,  it  is  inconsistent." 

"  In  details  that  does  not  seem  to  me  to  matter  either," 
said  Merivale.  "  For  instance,  I  don't  eat  meat  partly  be- 
cause I  think  that  it  is  better  not  to  take  life  if  you  can  avoid 
it.  But  when  a  midge  settles  on  my  hand  and  bites  me,  if 
possible  I  kill  it." 

"  Well,  anyhow  your  inconsistencies  make  up  a  very 
charming  whole,"  said  the  other,  looking  round.  "  It  is  all 
charming." 

"  I'm  g^d,  and  you  think  you  can  pass  a  day  or  two  here 
without  missing  the — the  complications  you  live  among?  I 
wish  Philip  could  have  come  down,  too ;  but  he  is  buried  in 
work,  it  appears,  and  we  know  how  his  leisure  is  occupied 
just  now." 

Evelyn  moved  suddenly  in  his  chair. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  73 

"  Ah,  do  you  know,  I  am  rather  glad  Philip  isn't  here,"  he 

said.  "  I  don't  think "  and  he  broke  off  again.  "  And  as 

soon  as  I've  finished  this  portrait,  I'm  going  to  do  his,"  he 
added. 

He  was  silent  a  moment,  feeling  somehow  that  he  never 
would  do  Philip's  portrait.  He  would  not  be  able  to  see  him, 
he  would  not  be  able  to  paint  him;  something,  no  shadow, 
but  something  so  bright  would  stand  between  him  and  the 
canvas  that  he  would  be  unable  to  see  beyond  or  through  it. 

But  Merivale  did  not  seem  to  notice  the  check.  His  eyes 
were  looking  out  over  the  glowing  garden,  where  all  colours 
were  turned  to  flame  in  the  almost  level  rays  of  the  sun  as  it 
drew  near  to  its  setting.  The  wall  behind  the  deep  garden 
bed  glowed  as  if  the  bricks  themselves  were  luminous,  light 
seemed  to  exude  from  the  grass,  the  flowers  were  bells  and 
cups  of  fire. 

"  Ah,  this  is  the  best  moment  of  all  the  day,"  he  said, 
"  when  sunset  comes  like  this.  The  whole  of  the  sunshine 
of  the  hours  seem  distilled  into  it,  it  is  the  very  essence  of 
light" 

He  rose  from  his  chair,  and  went  to  the  edge  of  the  veran- 
dah, stretching  his  arms  wide  and  breathing  deeply  of  the 
warm,  fragrant  air.  Then  he  turned  again  to  his  companion. 

"  That,  too,  I  hope  is  what  death  will  be  like,"  he  said. 
"  All  the  sunlight  of  life  will  be  concentrated  into  that  mo- 
ment, until  one's  mere  body  can  hold  no  more  of  the  glow 
that  impregnates  it,  and  is  shattered.  Look  at  those  clusters 
of  rambler;  a  little  more  and  they  must  burst  with  the 
colour. 

Evelyn  got  up  too. 

"  Don't  be  so  uncomfortable,  Tom,"  he  cried,  in  a  sort  of 
boyish  petulance.  "  I  could  go  mad  when  I  think  of  death. 
It  is  horrible,  frightening.  I  don't  want  to  die,  and  I  don't 
want  to  get  old.  I  want  to  be  young  always,  to  feel  as  I  feel 
to-day,  and  never  a  jot  less  keenly.  That's  what  you  must 
tell  me  while  I  am  here ;  how  am  I  to  remain  young  ?  You 
seem  to  have  solved  it ;  you  are  much  younger  than  when  I 
knew  you  first." 

Tom  laughed. 

"  And  another  proof  of  my  youth  is  that  I  feel  as  I  do 
about  death,"  he  said.  "  The  more  you  are  conscious  of 
your  own  life,  the  more  absurd  the  notion  that  one  can  die 


74  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

becomes.  Why,  even  one's  body  won't  die;  it  will  make 
life,  it  will  be  grass  on  one's  grave,  just  as  the  dead  leaves 
that  fall  from  the  tree  make  the  leaf-mould  which  feeds  that 
tree  or  another  tree  or  the  grass.  It  doesn't  in  the  least  mat- 
ter which,  it  is  all  one,  it  is  all  life." 

Evelyn  shivered  slightly. 

"  Yes,  quite  true,  and  not  the  least  consoling,"  he  said ; 
"  for  what  is  the  use  of  being  alive  if  one  loses  one's  individ- 
uality? It  doesn't  make  death  the  least  less  terrible  to  me, 
even  if  I  know  that  I  am  going  to  become  a  piece  of  ground- 
sel and  be  pecked  at  by  your  canary.  I  don't  want  to  be 
groundsel,  I  don't  want  to  be  pecked  at,  and  I  don't  want  to 
become  your  canary.  Great  heavens,  fancy  being  a  bit  of  a 
canary !" 

"  Ah,  but  only  your  body,"  said  the  other. 

Evelyn  got  up. 

"  Yes,  and  what  happens  to  the  rest  ?  You  tell  me  that  a 
piece  of  me,  for  my  body  is  a  piece  of  me,  becomes  a  canary, 
and  you  don't  know  about  the  rest.  Indeed  it  is  not  a  cheer- 
ful prospect.  If  some — some  bird  pecks  my  eyes  out,  is  it  a 
consolation  to  me,  who  becomes  blind,  to  learn  that  a  bird 
has  had  dinner?" 

Merivale  looked  at  him ;  even  as  Gladys  had  seen  that  some 
change  had  come  in  Madge,  so  he  saw  that  something  had 
happened  to  Evelyn,  and  he  registered  that  impression  in  his 
mind.  But  the  change,  whatever  it  was,  was  not  permanent 
— it  was  a  phase,  a  mood  only,  for  next  moment  Evelyn  had 
broken  out  into  a  perfectly  natural  laugh. 

"  You  shan't  make  me  think  of  melancholy  subjects  any 
more,"  he  cried.  "  Indeed  you  may  try,  but  you  won't  be 
able  to  do  it.  I  have  never  been  more  full  of  the  joy  of 
life  than  to-day.  That  was  why  I  was  so  glad  to  come  down 
here,  as  you  are  a  sort  of  apostle  of  joy.  But  it's  true  that 
I  also  want  to  talk  to  you  some  time  about  something  quite 
serious.  Not  now  though,  but  after  dinner.  Also  you  will 
have  to  show  me  all  the  bag  of  conjuring  tricks,  the  mechan- 
ical nightingale,  the  disappearing  omelette— I  could  do  that, 
by  the  way — and  the  Pan  pipes.  Now,  I'm  going  upstairs  to 
change;  I've  got  London  things  on,  and  my  artistic  eye  is 
Offended  Where  shall  I  find  you  ?" 

"  I  shall  go  down  to  bathe.  Won't  you  come?"  said  Mer- 
ivale. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 


75 


Evelyn  wrinkled  up  his  nose. 

"  No,  I've  not  been  hot  enough.  Besides,  one  is  inferior 
to  the  frog  in  the  water,  which  is  humiliating.  Any  frog 
swims  so  much  better!" 


SIXTH- 


'ERIVALE  had  scooped  out  a  long  bathing-pool  at 
the  bottom  of  the  garden,  and  when  Evelyn  left  him, 
he  took  his  towel  and  walked  down  to  it.  A  little 
higher  up  was  a  weir,  and  from  this  he  plunged  into 
a  soda  water  of  vivifying  bubble,  and  floated  down  as  the 
woven  ropes  of  water  willed  to  take  him  till  he  grounded  on 
the  beds  of  yellow,  shining  gravel  at  the  tail  of  the  pool,  laugh- 
ing with  joy  at  the  cool  touch  of  the  stream.  The  day  had 
been  very  hot,  and  since  breakfast  he  had  been  on  the  move, 
now  under  the  shadow  of  the  trees,  but  as  often  as  not  grilled 
by  the  great  blaze  of  the  sun  on  the  open  heaths,  and  it  was 
with  an  extraordinary  sense  of  renewed  life  and  of  kinship 
with  this  beautiful  creature  that  was  poured  from  the  weir 
in  never-ending  volumes  that  he  gave  himself  up  to  the 
clean,  sensuous  thrill  of  the  moment.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  the  strong  flood  that  bore  him,  with  waves  and  eddies 
just  tipped  with  the  gold  and  crimson  of  the  sun,  entirely 
interpenetrated  and  possessed  him.  He  was  not  more  himself 
than  was  the  stream,  the  stream  was  not  more  itself  than  it 
was  he.  The  blue  vault  overhead  with  its  fleeces  of  cloud 
beginning  to  flush  rosily  was  part  of  the  same  thing,  the 
beech-trees  with  leaves  a-quiver  in  the  evening  breeze  were 
but  a  hand  or  an  eyebrow  of  himself. 

Then,  with  the  briskness  of  his  renewed  vigour,  he  set  him- 
self to  swim  against  this  piece  of  himself,  as  if  right  hand 
should  wrestle  with  left,  breasting  the  river  with  vigourous 
strokes,  yet  scarcely  moving  against  the  press  of  the  run- 
ning stream,  while  like  a  frill  the  water  stood  up  bubbling 
round  his  neck.  Then  again,  with  limbs  deliriously  tired 
with  the  struggle,  he  turned  on  his  back  and  floated  down 
again,  with  arms  widespread,  to  increase  the  surface  of  con- 
tact. Though  this  sense  of  unity  with  the  life  of  Nature  was 
never  absent  from  him,  so  that  it  was  his  last  waking 
thought  at  night  and  stood  by  him  while  he  slept,  ready  to 
76 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  77 

awake  him  again,  water  somehow,  live,  running  water  with 
the  sun  on  its  surface,  or  the  rain  beating  on  to  it,  with  its 
lucent  depths  and  waving  water-weeds  that  the  current 
combed,  gave  it  him  more  than  anything  else.  Nothing  else 
had  quite  that  certainty  of  everlasting  life  about  it;  it  was 
continually  outpoured,  yet  not  diminished;  it  mingled  with 
the  sea,  and  sprang  to  heaven  in  all  the  forms  and  iridescent 
colours  of  mist  and  cloud,  to  return  again  to  the  earth  in 
the  rain  that  made  the  grass  to  grow  and  fed  the  springs. 
And  this  envelopment  of  himself  in  it  was  a  sort  of  outward 
symbol  of  his  own  absorption  in  Nature,  the  outward  and 
visible  sign  of  it.  Every  day  the  mystery  and  the  wonder  of 
it  all  increased ;  all  cleansing,  all  renewal  was  contained  here, 
for  even  as  the  water  cleansed  and  renewed  him,  so  through 
the  countless  ages  it  cleansed  and  renewed  itself.  And  here 
alone  the  intermediary  step,  death,  out  of  which  came  new 
life,  was  omitted.  To  water  there  was  no  death ;  it  was  eter- 
nally young,  and  the  ages  brought  no  abatement  of  its 
vigour. 

Then  in  the  bright  twilight  of  the  sun  just  set  he  dressed 
and  walked  back  to  the  house  to  find  that  he  had  been  nearly 
an  hour  gone,  and  that  it  was  close  on  dinner-time. 

During  the  earlier  part,  anyhow,  of  that  meal  Evelyn 
showed  no  return  of  his  disquietude,  but,  as  was  his  wont, 
poured  out  floods  of  surprising  stuff.  He  talked  shop  quite 
unashamed,  and  this  evening  the  drawbacks  of  an  artist's 
life  supplied  his  text. 

"  Yes,  everyone  is  for  ever  insisting,"  he  said,  "  that  the 
artist's  life  is  its  own  reward,  because  his  work  is  creative; 
but  there  are  times  when  I  would  sooner  be  the  man  who 
puts  bristles  in  toothbrushes.  Those  folk  don't  allow  for  the 
days  when  you  sit  in  front  of  a  blank  canvas,  or  a  canvas 
half-finished,  and  look  at  it  in  an  absolute  stupor  of  helpless- 
ness. I  suppose  they  would  say  *  Go  on,  put  down  what  you 
see.'  and  they  are  so  wooden-headed  as  not  to  realise  that 
on  such  occasions,  unfortunately  numerous,  one  doesn't  see 
anything,  and  one  couldn't  put  it  down  if  one  did.  There  is 
a  blank  wall  in  front  of  one.  And  it  is  then  I  say  with  Mr. 
Micawber.  *  No  one  is  without  a  friend  who  is  possessed  of 
shaving  materials' — yet  I  don't  kill  myself.  Oh,  hang  it, 
here  we  are  talking  about  death  again !  Give  me  some  more 
fish." 


78  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

Merivale  performed  this  hospitable  duty. 

"  Ah,  but  what  do  you  expect  ?"  he  asked.  "  Surely  you 
can't  think  it's  possible  that  a  man  can  live  all  the  time  in  the 
full  blaze  of  imaginative  vision  ?  You  might  as  well  expect 
him  to  run  at  full  speed  from  the  day  he  was  born  to  the 
day  of  his — well,  all  the  time,  as  you  dislike  the  word." 

Evelyn  drummed  the  table  with  his  ringers. 

"  But  it's  just  that  I  want,"  he  cried.  "  Whose  fault  is  it 
that  I  can't  do  what  I  feel  is  inside  me  all  the  time?  If  I 
have  what  you  call  the  imaginative  vision  at  all,  who  has 
got  any  business  to  put  a  cap  like  the  cap  of  a  camera  lens 
over  it,  so  that  I  can  see  nothing  whatever  ?  Oh,  the  pity  of 
it!  Sitters,  too!  Sitters  can  be  so  antipathetic  that  I  feel 
when  I  look  at  them  that  the  imaginative  vision  is  oozing 
out  of  me,  like  sawdust  when  you  clip  a  doll's  leg,  and  that 
in  another  moment  I  shall  be  just  a  heap  of  collapsed  rags 
on  the  floor,  with  a  silly  waxen  head  and  shoulders  on  the 
top.  If  only  people  would  come  to  me  to  paint  their  carica- 
tures I  could  do  some  rippers.  The  next  woman  I've  got 
to  paint  when  these  two  are  finished  is  a  pink  young  thing 
of  sixty,  with  a  face  that  has  exactly  the  expression  of  a 
pansy.  Lord !  Lord !" 

This  was  so  completely  the  normal  Evelyn  Dundas  that 
Merivale,  if  not  reassured,  for  there  was  no  need  for  that,  at 
any  rate  thought  that  he  had  been  mistaken  in  his  idea  that 
some  change  had  come  to  him.  He  was  just  the  same  vivid, 
eager  boy  that  he  had  always  been,  blessed  with  one  supreme 
talent,  which,  vampire-like,  seemed  to  suck  the  blood  out  of 
all  the  other  possibilities  and  dormant  energies  of  his  nature, 
and  suck,  too,  all  sense  of  responsibility  from  him. 

"  Refuse  them  then,"  he  said ;  "  say  '  I  won't  paint  you : 
you  sap  my  faculties.'  " 

Evelyn  burst  out  into  a  great  shout  of  laughter. 

'  Mr.  Dundas  presents  his  compliments  to  Lady  What's- 
hername,'  "  he  said,  "  '  and  regrets,  on  inspection,  that  he  is 
unable  to  paint  her  portrait,  owing  to  the  fact  that  a  pro- 
longed contemplation  of  her  charms  would  sap  his  artistic 
powers,  which  he  feels  himself  unwilling  to  part  with/ 
What  would  be  this  rising  young  painter's  position  in  a 
year's  time,  eh  ?  His  studio  would  be  as  empty  as  the  New 
Forest.  You  might  then  come  and  live  there,  Tom," 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  79 

Evelyn  finished  his  wine  and  lit  a  cigarette  all  in  one 
breath. 

"  Now,  strange  though  it  may  seem  to  you,"  he  said,  "  I 
feel  that  I've  talked  enough  about  myself  for  the  moment, 
though  I  propose  to  go  on  afterwards.  So,  by  way  of  transi- 
tion, we  will  talk  about  you.  As  I  dressed  a  number  of 
frightful  posers  came  into  my  head  about  you,  and  I  want 
categorical  answers.  Now  you've  been  here  how  long? 
More  than  a  year,  isn't  it?  What  can  you  show  for  it? 
Number  two:  What's  it  all  about?  Number  three:  How 
can  you  call  yourself  a  student  of  Nature  when  you  deliber- 
ately shut  your  eyes  to  all  the  suffering,  all  the  death,  all  the 
sacrifice  that  goes  on  eternally  in  Nature?  I  might  as  well 
call  myself  an  artist  and  refuse  to  use  blue  and  red  in  my 
pictures.  I  remember  asking  you  something  of  this  sort  be- 
fore, and  your  answer  was  eminently  unsatisfactory.  Be- 
sides, I  have  forgotten  it." 

Merivale  moved  sideways  to  the  table,  and  crossed  one  leg 
over  the  other. 

"  Does  it  really  at  all  interest  you  ?"  he  said. 

"  It  does,  or  I  should  not  ask.  Another  thing,  too :  I  have 
been  looking  at  you  all  dinner,  and  I  could  swear  you  look 
much  younger  than  you  did  five  years  ago.  Indeed,  if  I  saw 
you  now  for  the  first  time  I  should  say  you  were  not  much 
more  than  twenty.  Also  you  used  to  be  a  touchy,  irritable 
sort  of  devil,  and  you  look  now  as  if  nothing  in  the  world 
had  the  power  to  make  you  cease  smiling.  Did  you  know, 
by  the  way,  that  you  are  always  smiling  a  little?" 

Tom  laughed. 

"  No,  not  consciously,"  he  said  ;  "  but  now  you  mention  it, 
it  seems  impossible  that  I  should  not." 

"  Well,  begin,"  said  Evelyn,  with  his  usual  impatience. 
"  Tell  me  all  about  it,  and  attempt  to  answer  all  those  very 
pertinent  questions.  Smoke,  too ;  I  listen  better  to  a  person 
who  is  smoking,  because  I  feel  that  he  is  more  comfortable."' 

A  sudden  wind  stirred  in  the  garden,  blowing  towards 
them  in  the  verandah  the  sleeping  fragrance  of  the  beds  and 
the  wandering  noises  of  the  night,  which,  all  together  make 
up  what  we  call  the  silence  of  the  night,  even  as  the  mixture 
of  primary  colours  makes  white. 

"  Smoke  ?  No,  I  don't  smoke  now,"  said  Merivale ;  "  but 
if  you  really  want  to  know,  I  will  tell  you  all  I  can  tell  you. 


80  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

The  conjuring  tricks,  as  you  call  them,  I  suppose  you  will 
take  for  granted?" 

Evelyn,  comfortable  with  his  coffee  and  liqueur,  assented, 

"  Yes,  leave  them  out,"  he  said.  "  Here  beginneth  the 
gospel." 

He  tried  in  these  words  to  be  slightly  offensive ;  the  offen- 
siveness,  however,  went  wide  of  the  mark,  and  he  was  sorry. 
For  the  Hermit,  as  he  had  known  him  in  the  world,  was  sin- 
gularly liable  to  take  offence,  to  be  irritable,  impatient,  to  be 
stamping  and  speechifying  on  an  extremely  human  platform. 
But  no  vibration  of  any  such  impatience  was  in  Merivale's 
voice,  and  in  his  words  there  was  no  backhander  to  answer 
it.  So  the  gospel  began. 

"  It  is  all  so  simple,"  he  said,  "  yet  I  suppose  that  to  com- 
plicated people  simplicity  is  as  difficult  to  understand  as  is 
complexity  to  simple  people.  But  here  it  is,  anyhow,  and 
make  the  best  or  the  worst  of  it ;  that  is  entirely  your  con- 
cern." 

"  There  is  God,"  he  said,  "  there  is  also  Nature,  which  I 
take  to  be  the  visible,  tangible,  audible  expression  of  Him. 
There  is  also  man — of  which  you  and  I  are  specimens,  and 
whether  we  are  above  or  below  the  average  doesn't  matter 
in  the  least — and  man  by  a  dreadful  process  called  civilisa- 
tion has  worked  himself  back  into  a  correspondingly  dread- 
ful condition.  If  he  were  either  fish,  flesh,  or  fowl  one 
would  know  where  to  put  him,  but  he  is  none  of  those.  He 
seems,  at  any  rate  to  me,  to  be  a  peculiar  product  of  his  own 
making,  and  instead  of  being  a  creature  compounded  of  life 
and  joy,  which  should  be  his  ingredients  and  also  his  study, 
he  has  become  a  creature  who  is  mated  with  sorrow  and  at 
the  end  with  death.  He  has  become  rotten  without  ever 
being  ripe,  the  flower  to  which  he  should  have  attained  has 
"been  cankered  in  the  bud.  Now,  all  this  it  has  been  my  de- 
liberate aim  to  leave  behind  me  and  to  forget,  and  to  go 
straight  back  to  that  huge  expression  of  the  joy  of  God, 
which  man  has  been  unable  to  spoil  or  render  sorrowful,  to 
the  great  hymn  of  Nature.  Listen  to  that  for  a  moment — 
and  for  the  more  moments  you  listen  to  it  the  more  unmis- 
takable will  its  tenour  be — and  you  will  hear  that  the  whole 
impression  is  one  of  life  and  of  joy.  There  is,  it  is  true, 
throughout  Nature  the  sound  of  death,  of  cruelty,  and  of  one 
creature  preying  on  another ;  but  the  net  result  is  not  death. 


THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN  81 

it  is  ever-increasing  life.  And  so  when  I  went  to  Nature  I 
shut  my  ears  and  eyes  to  that  minor  undercurrent  of  sound. 
Of  the  result  I  was  sure ;  day  after  day  there  is  more  life  in 
the  world,  in  spite  of  the  death  that  day  after  day  goes  on. 
All  the  death  goes  to  form  fresh  life.  In  the  same  way  with 
the  joy  and  sorrow  of  Nature;  for  every  animal  that  suffers 
there  are  two  that  are  glad,  for  every  tree  that  dies  there  are 
two  in  the  full  vigour  of  the  joy  of  life.  And  that  joy  and 
that  life  is  my  constant  study.  I  soak  myself  in  it,  and  shall 
so  do  until  I  am  utterly  impregnated  with  it.  And  when 
that  day  comes,  when  there  is  no  tiny  or  obscure  fibre  in  my 
being  that  does  not  completely  realise  it,  then,  with  a  flash  of 
revelation,  so  I  take  it,  I  shall  '  grasp  the  scheme  of  things 
entire.'  Whether  by  life  or  by  death,  I  shall  truly  realise 
that  I  and  that  moth  flitting  by,  and  the  odours  of  the  garden 
and  the  river  are  indivisibly  one,  just  an  expression  of  the 
spirit  of  life,  which  is  God." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"  There  were  two  other  questions  you  asked  me,"  he  said. 
"  What  have  I  got  to  show  for  the  years  I  have  spent  here  ? 
I  shrug  my  shoulders  at  that;  it  is  I  who  am  being  shown. 
The  second  concerns  my  personal  appearance,  for  you  say 
I  look  younger.  That  is  probably  quite  true  and  quite  inev- 
itable, for  the  contemplation  of  the  eternal  youth  of  the 
world  I  suppose  must  make  one  younger,  body  and  soul 
alike.  And  that  is  all,  I  think." 

Evelyn  was  listening  with  extreme  attention;  he  did  not 
look  in  the  least  uninterested. 

"  My  word,  you've  got  a  perfectly  sober  plan  at  the  bottom 
of  it  all,"  he  said,  "  and  I  thought  half  of  it  was  moonshine 
and  the  other  half  imagination.  There  is  one  more  question 
— two  more.  What  if  the  whole  of  the  suffering  and  the 
cruelty  and  the  death  in  Nature  is  made  clear  to  you  in  a 
flash,  if  it  is  that  which  will  come  to  make  you  grasp  the 
scheme  of  things  entire  ?" 

Merivale  smiled  still,  rocking  forward  in  his  chair  with 
his  hands  clasped  round  his  knee. 

"  That  is  possible,"  he  said,  "  and  I  recognise  that.  But 
I  don't  think  I  am  frightened  at  it.  If  it  is  to  be  so,  it  is  to 
be  so.  Though  I  suppose  one  won't  live  after  it.  Well  ?" 

"  And  the  second  question.    You  think,  then,  it  is  our  duty 


82  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

to  seek  happiness  and  joy  and  forget  the  sorrow  of  the 
world?" 

'-  I  think  it  is  so  for  me,"  said  he,  "  though  I  do  think  that 
there  are  many  people,  most,  I  suppose,  that  realise  them- 
selves through  sorrow  and  suffering.  I  can  only  say  that  I 
believe  I  am  not  one  of  those.  The  way  does  not  lie  for  me 
there." 

Evelyn  got  up,  and  stood  leaning  on  the  balustrade  of  the 
verandah.  This  was  beginning  to  touch  him  more  closely 
now ;  his  own  threads  were  beginning  to  interweave  in  the 
scheme  Merivale  drew. 

"  And  for  me,"  he  said.  "  What  is  your  diagnosis  of  me  ? 
Am  I  one  of  those  who  will  find  themselves  through  sorrow 
or  through  joy?" 

Merivale  turned  to  him  with  almost  the  same  eagerness 
in  his  face  as  Evelyn  himself  showed. 

"  Ah,  how  can  I  tell  you  that  ?"  he  said,  "  beyond  telling 
you  at  least  that  in  my  opinion,  which  after  all  is  only  my 
opinion,  it  is  in  joy  that  you,  almost  above  everyone  I  know, 
will  ripen  and  bear  fruit.  Sorrow,  asceticism  is  the  road  by 
which  some  approach  happiness,  but  I  do  not  see  you  on  that 
road.  Renunciation  for  you " 

Evelyn  got  up  and  came  a  step  closer. 

"Yes?    Yes?"  he  cried. 

Merivale  answered  him  by  another  question. 

"  Something  has  happened  to  you,"  he  said.  "  What  is 
it?" 

"  I  have  fallen  in  love,"  said  the  other.  "  I  only  knew  it 
to-day.  Yes,  her,  Madge  Ellington.  Good  God,  man,  I  love 
her !  And  I  am  painting  her — I  see  her  nearly  daily  alone ; 
it  is  my  business  to  study  her  face  and  get  to  know  her " 

His  voice  dropped  suddenly. 

"  What  am  I  to  do  ?"  he  said  after  a  moment.  "  Philip,  the 
whole  thing " 

"  Ah,  you  can't  go  on,"  said  Merivale  quickly.  "  You 
must  see  that.  Wherever  our  paths  lie,  there  is  honour " 

"  Honour?"  cried  Evelyn  almost  savagely.  "  Have  I  not 
as  good  a  right  to  love  her  as  Philip  has  ?  You  can't  tie  one 
down  like  that !  Besides,  how  can  I  help  loving  her?  Night 
and  day  are  not  less  in  my  control.  Besides,  I  have  no  rea- 
son to  suppose  that  she  loves  me,  so  what  harm  is  done? 
But  if  she  does  or  should " 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  83 

Again  he  stopped,  for  there  was  no  need  to  go  on ;  the 
conclusion  of  the  sentence  was  not  less  clear  because  it  was 
unspoken.  After  a  moment  he  continued. 

"  And  what  was  your  view  just  now  about  renunciation 
for  me  ?"  he  asked. 

Merivale  got  up. 

"  I  don't  know  what  to  say  to  you,"  he  said.  "  What  do 
you  propose,  you  yourself?" 

"  I  propose  to  tell  her  what  I  know — that  I  love  her," 
said  he. 

There  was  a  long  pause ;  Merivale  was  looking  out  over 
the  dusky  garden,  and  his  lips  moved  as  if  he  was  trying  to 
frame  some  sentence,  yet  no  words  came.  In  the  East  the 
moon  was  soon  to  rise  behind  the  wedge  of  beech-wood 
which  came  diagonally  across  the  heath,  and  though  it  was 
not  yet  visible,  the  sky  was  changing  from  the  dark  velvet 
blue  which  had  succeeded  sunset  to  the  mysterious  dove  col- 
our which  heralds  the  moon.  A  night  breeze  stirred  among 
the  shrubs,  and  the  scent  of  the  stocks  was  wafted  into  the 
verandah,  twined,  as  it  were,  with  the  swooning  fragrance  of 
the  syringa.  But  for  once  Merivale  was  unconscious  of  the 
witchery  of  the  hour;  in  spite  of  himself,  the  interests,  the 
problems,  the  suffering  and  renunciation  of  human  life,  from 
which  he  had  thought  he  had  weaned  himself,  claimed  him 
again.  He  had  tried,  and  in  great  measure  succeeded,  in  de- 
taching himself  from  them,  but  he  had  not  completely  broken 
away  from  them  yet.  He  had  enlisted  under  the  banner  of 
joy,  but  now  from  the  opposing  hosts  there  came  a  cry  to 
him,  and  he  could  not  shut  his  ears  to  it.  Here  was  the 
necessity  for  suffering,  it  could  not  but  be  that  of  these  two 
friends  of  his,  suffering  poignant  and  cruel  lay  before  one  of 
them,  though  which  that  one  should  be  he  did  not  know. 
But  the  necessity  was  dragged  before  his  notice. 

Then  from  the  garden  his  eyes  rested  on  Evelyn  again, 
as  he  stood  close  to  him  with  his  keen,  beautiful  face,  his 
eyes  in  which  burned  the  wonder  of  his  love,  his  long,  slim 
limbs  and  hands  that  trembled,  all  so  astonishingly  alive, 
and  all  so  instinct  with  the  raptures  and  the  rewards  of  liv- 
ing, and  he  could  not  say  "Your  duty  lies  here,"  even  had  he 
been  certain  that  it  was  so,  so  grey  and  toneless,  so  utterly 
at  variance  with  the  whole  gospel  of  his  own  life  would  the 
advice  have  been.  Yet  neither,  for  his  detachment  from 


84  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

human  affairs  was  not,  nor  coula  it  be,  complete,  could  he 
say  to  him  "  Yes,  all  the  joy  you  can  lay  hands  on  is  yours," 
for  on  the  other  side  stood  Philip.  But  his  sympathies  were 
not  there. 

He  spread  out  his  hands  with  a  sort  of  hopeless  gesture. 

"  I  don't  know  what  to  say :  I  don't  even  know  what  I 
think,"  he  said.  "  It  is  one  of  those  things  that  is  without 
solution,  or  rather  there  are  two  solutions,  both  of  which 
are  inevitably  right,  and  utterly  opposed.  But  you  have  as 
yet  no  reason  to  think  that  she  loves  you ;  all  goes  to  show 
otherwise." 

"  Yes,  all,"  said  Evelyn  softly,  "  but  somehow  I  don't  be- 
lieve it.  I  can't  help  that  either." 

Then  suddenly  he  took  hold  of  Merivale's  shoulders  with 
both  hands. 

"  Ah,  you  don't  understand,"  he  said.  "  You  were  saying 
just  now  that  you  and  the  river  were  indivisibly  one.  That 
Is  a  mere  figure  of  speech,  though  I  understand  what  you 
mean  by  it.  But  with  me  it  is  sober  truth ;  I  am  Madge.  I 
have  no  existence  apart  from  her.  Some  door  has  been 
opened,  I  have  passed  through  it  into  her.  Half  oneself! 
Someone  says  man  alone  is  only  half  himself.  What  non- 
sense! Till  he  loves  he  is  complete  in  himself,  but  then  he 
ceases  to  be  himself  at  all." 

Wild  as  were  his  words,  so  utterly  was  he  in  the  grip  of 
his  newly-awakened  passion  that  possessed  him,  there  was 
something  convincing  to  Merivale  about  it.  He  might  as 
well  have  tied  a  piece  of  string  across  a  line  to  stop  a  run- 
away locomotive  as  hope  to  influence  Evelyn  by  words  or 
advice,  especially  since  he  at  heart  pulled  in  the  opposite  way 
to  the  advice  he  might  thus  give.  The  matter  was  beyond 
control ;  it  must  work  itself  out  to  its  inevitable  end. 

"  And  when  will  you  tell  her  ?"  he  asked. 

"  I  don't  know.  The  moment  I  see  she  loves  me,  if  that 
moment  comes." 

"And  if  it  does  not?" 

Again  his  passion  shook  him  like  some  great  wave  comb- 
ing the  weeds  of  the  sea. 

"  It  must,"  he  said. 

That  clearly  was  the  last  word  on  the  subject,  and  even 
as  he  spoke  the  rim  of  the  moon  a  week  from  full  topped  the 
beech-wood,  and  flooded  the  garden  with  silver,  and  both 


THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN  85 

watched  in  silence  till  the  three-quarter  circle  swung  clear 
of  the  trees.  Just  a  month  ago  Evelyn  had  watched  it  rising 
with  Madge  on  the  terrace  of  Philip's  house,  and  the  sight 
of  it  now  made  the  last  month  pass  in  review  before  him 
like  some  scene  that  moved  behind  the  actors,  as  in  the  first 
act  in  Parsifal.  The  light  it  shed  to-day  seemed  to  flash 
back  and  illumine  the  whole  of  those  weeks,  and  showed  him 
how  in  darkness  that  plant  had  grown  which  to-day  had 
flowered  rose-coloured  and  perfect  Every  day  since  then, 
when  the  seed  had  first  been  planted  in  his  soul,  had  it  shot 
up  towards  the  light ;  there  had  been  no  day,  so  he  felt  now, 
on  which  the  growth  had  stood  still;  it  had  been  uninter- 
rupted from  the  first  germination  to  this  its  full  flower.  But 
the  last  word  had  been  spoken,  and  when  the  moon  had 
cleared  the  tree-tops,  Merivale  turned  to  him. 

"  I  seldom  sleep  in  the  house,"  he  said,  "  and  I  certainly 
shall  not  to-night." 

"  Where  then  ?"  asked  the  other. 

"  Oh,  anywhere,  often  in  several  places.  In  fact,  I  seldom 
wake  in  the  morning  where  I  go  to  bed  in  the  evening." 

"Sleep-walking?"  suggested  Evelyn. 

"  Oh,  dear  no !  But  you  know  all  animals  wake  in  the 
night  and  turn  over,  or  get  up  for  a  few  moments  and  take 
a  mouthful  of  grass.  Well,  the  same  thing  happens  to  me. 
I  always  wake  about  three  in  the  morning,  and  walk  about  a 
little,  and,  as  I  say,  usually  go  to  sleep  again  somewhere  else. 
But  I  suppose  the  dignity  of  man  asserts  itself,  and  I  often 
go  further  than  animals.  For  instance,  I  shall  probably  go 
to  sleep  in  the  hammock  in  the  garden,  and  walk  up  into  the 
beech-wood  when  I  wake  for  the  first  time." 

"  Ah,  that  does  sound  rather  nice,"  said  Evelyn  appreci- 
atively. 

"  Well,  come  and  sleep  out  too.  It  will  do  you  all  the 
good  in  the  world.  You  can  have  the  hammock ;  I'll  lie  on 
the  grass.  I  always  have  a  rug." 

But  Evelyn's  appreciation  was  not  of  the  practical  sort. 

"  Heaven  forbid !"  he  said.  "  My  bedroom  is  good  enough 
for  me." 

It  was  already  late,  and  he  took  a  candle  and  went  up- 
stairs, Merivale  following  him  to  see  he  had  all  he  wanted. 
His  servant,  however,  had  arranged  the  utmost  requirements 


86  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

in  the  most  convenient  way,  and  the  sight  suddenly  suggested 
a  new  criticism  to  Evelyn. 

"  Keeping  a  servant,  too,"  he  said.  "  Is  not  that  fright- 
fully inconsistent?" 

Merivale  laughed. 

"  You  don't  suppose  I  keep  a  servant  when  I  am  alone?" 
he  asked.  "  But  I  find  I  am  so  bad  at  looking  after  the  re- 
quirements of  my  guests  that  I  hire  one  if  anyone  happens 
to  be  here.  He  is  a  man  from  the  hotel  at  Brockenhurst." 

"  I  apologise,"  said  the  other.  "  But  do  dismiss  him  to- 
morrow. For  I  didn't  want  to  come  to  an  hotel ;  I  wanted  to 
see  how  the  Hermit  really  lived." 

"  Stop  over  to-morrow  then,  and  you  will  see,"  said  Meri- 
vale. "  But  I  keep  a  woman  in  the  house,  who  cooks." 

"  That  also  is  inconsistent." 

"  No,  I  don't  think  so.  It  takes  longer  than  you  would 
imagine  to  do  all  the  housework  yourself.  I  tried  it  last  win- 
ter and  found  it  not  worth  while.  Besides,  dusting  and 
cleaning  are  so  absorbing.  I  could  think  of  nothing  else." 

"  But  doesn't  she  find  it  absorbing?" 

Merivale  laughed. 

"  I  feel  sure  she  doesn't,"  he  said,  "  or  she  would  do  it 
better.  But  when  I  dusted  for  myself,  nothing  short  of  per- 
fection would  content  me.  I  was  dusting  all  day  long." 

Evelyn  looked  doubtfully  at  his  bed. 

"  Shall  I  have  to  make  it — whatever  '  making'  means  ?" 
he  asked,  "if  I  sleep  in  it?  If  so,  I  really  don't  think  it 
would  be  worth  while.  Besides,  I  know  I  shan't  sleep,  and 
if  I  don't  sleep  I  am  a  wreck." 

Merivale  raised  his  eyebrows. 

"  Surely  you  sleep  when  you  want  sleep  just  as  you  eat 
when  you  are  hungry,"  he  said,  "  or  is  that  an  exploded  su- 
perstition ?" 

"  Quite  exploded.  I  shan't  sleep  a  wink,"  said  Evelyn, 
beginning  to  undress.  "  Oh,  how  can  I  ?"  he  cried. 

"  And  you  really  want  to  ?" 

"  Why,  of  course.    I'm  as  cross  as  two  sticks  if  I  don't." 

Merivale  shook  his  head. 

"  I'll  make  you  sleep  if  you  wish,"  he  said.  "  Get  into 
bed.  I  must  go  and  turn  out  the  lights.  I'll  be  back  in  two 
minutes." 

He  left  the  room,  and  Evelyn  undressed  quickly. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  87 

All  that  had  happened  to-day  ran  like  a  mill-race  in  his 
head,  and,  arguing  from  previous  experience,  he  knew  per- 
haps the  tithe  of  what  awaited  him  when  the  light  was  out. 
For  often  before,  when  a  picture,  not  as  now  the  original  of 
it,  occupied  him,  misshapen  parodies  of  rest  had  been  his  till 
cock-crow.  First  of  all  would  come  a  sense  of  satisfaction 
at  being  alone,  at  being  able  to  let  his  thoughts  take  their 
natural  course  uninterrupted;  he  would  feast  his  eyes  on  the 
untenanted  blackness,  letting  his  imagination  paint  there  all 
that  it  had  been  so  intensely  occupied  with  during  the  day. 
But  then  as  the  brain  wearied,  in  place  of  the  ideal  he  had 
been  striving  for  would  come  distorted  reflections  of  it,  seen 
as  if  in  some  bloated  mirror,  and  still  awake  he  would  see 
his  thoughts  translated  into  some  horrible  grotesque  that 
would  startle  him  into  sitting-up  in  bed,  just  for  the  grasping 
of  the  bed-post,  or  the  feeling  of  the  wall,  to  bring  himself 
back  into  the  realm  of  concrete  things.  Otherwise  the  gro- 
tesques would  grow  into  dancing,  shapeless  horrors,  and  in 
a  moment  he  would  have  to  wrench  himself  free  from  the 
clutches  of  nightmare  and  start  up,  with  dripping  brow  and 
quivering  throat  that  could  not  scream,  into  reality  again. 
But  to-night  he  feared  no  nightmare ;  he  knew  simply  that 
sleep  could  not  come  to  him,  his  excitement  had  invaded 
and  conquered  the  drowsy  lands,  and  though  he  felt  now  that 
he  would  be  content  to  think  and  think  and  love  till  morn- 
ing, morning,  he  knew,  would,  like  an  obsequious  waiter, 
present  the  bill  for  the  sleepless  night.  Consequently,  when 
Merivale  again  entered,  he  welcomed  him. 

"  I  demand  a  conjuring-trick,"  he  said,  "  I  know  I 
shan't  sleep  at  all,  unless  you  have  some  charm  for  me. 
Good  God,  how  can  I  sleep?  And,  after  all,  why  should  I 
want  to  ?  Isn't  waking  good  enough  ?" 

Merivale  paused ;  waking  and  sleeping  seemed  to  him  no 
more  matters  for  concern  than  they  seem  to  an  animal  which 
sleeps  when  it  is  sleepy,  and  wakes  when  its  sleepiness  has 
gone. 

"  That  is  entirely  for  you  to  settle,"  he  said.  "  If  you  want 
to  sleep  I  can  make  you ;  if  you  don't,  I  shall  go  to  sleep  my- 
self. I  shall  do  that  in  any  case,"  he  added. 

Evelyn  was  already  overwrought  with  the  events  of  the 
day,  and  he  spoke  petulantly. 

"  Oh,  make  me  sleep,  then !"  he  said.    "  There  is  to-mor- 


88  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

row  coming.    I  can  do  nothing  to-night,  so  let's  get  it  over." 

"  Lie  down,  then,"  said  the  Hermit,  "  and  look  at  me,  look 
at  my  eyes,  I  mean." 

He  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  Evelyn's  bed,  and  spoke  low 
and  slow. 

"  The  wind  is  asleep,"  he  said,  "  it  sleeps  among  the  trees 
of  the  forest,  for  the  time  of  sleep  has  come,  and  everything 
sleeps,  your  love  sleeps  too.  Lie  still ;"  he  said,  as  Evelyn 
moved,  "  the  trees  of  the  forest  sleep ;  and  their  leaves  sleep, 
and  high  in  the  branches  the  birds  sleep.  Everything  sleeps, 
the  tired  even  and  the  weary  sleep,  and  those  who  are  strong 
sleep,  and  those  who  are  weak." 

Evelyn's  eyelids  quivered,  shut  a  moment,  then  half-, 
opened  again. 

"  The  flowers  sleep,"  said  Merivale,  "  and  the  eyelids  of 
their  petals  are  closed,  as  your  eyelids  are  closing.  Sleep, 
the  black  soft  wing,  has  shut  over  them,  as  the  wings  of 
birds  shut  over  their  heads.  The  earth  sleeps,  the  very  stones 
of  her  sleep ;  she  will  not  stir  till  morning,  or  if  she  stirs  it 
will  be  but  to  sleep  again.  The  sad  and  the  happy  sleep,  the 
very  sea  sleeps  and  is  hushed,  and  the  tides  of  the  sea  are 
asleep.  Sleep,  too,"  he  said,  slightly  raising  his  voice,  "  sleep 
till  they  wake — sleep  till  I  wake  you." 

He  waited  a  moment,  but  Evelyn's  eyelids  did  not  even 
quiver  again.  Then  he  blew  out  the  light  and  left  the  room. 

Merivale  stepped  softly  down  the  stairs,  and  went  out  on 
to  the  verandah,  where  they  had  dined  a  few  hours  before. 
At  the  touch  of  the  soft  night-air  all  the  trouble  that  during 
this  evening  had  been  his  was  evaporated  and  vanished.  The 
sum  of  his  consciousness  was  contained  in  the  bracket,  that 
he  was  alive,  and  that  he  was  part  of  life.  It  was  like  step- 
ping into  an  ocean  that  received  him  and  bore  him  on  its 
surface,  or  took  him  to  its  depths ;  which  mattered  not  at  all 
— the  thing  embraced  and  encompassed  him.  He  went  back 
again  to  it  from  the  fretful  trivialities  that  had  arrested  him 
as  the  midge  on  his  wrist  could  for  the  moment  arrest  him, 
trivially  and  momentarily  causing  him  some  infinitesimal 
annoyance.  But  that  was  over ;  the  huge  sky  was  above  him, 
the  world  was  sleep,  and  was  his  possession.  It — the  mate- 
rial part  of  it — was  but  a  dream,  the  spirit  of  it  all  suffused 
him.  There  was  life  everywhere,  life  in  its  myriad  forms,  its 
myriad  beauties.  The  sleepy  voice  of  the  river  was  part  of 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  89 

him,  the  moon  was  he,  the  utmost  twinkle  of  a  star  was  he 
also.  Yet  no  less  the  smallest  blade  of  grass  was  he;  there 
was  no  atom  of  the  universe  with  which  he  did  not  claim 
identity. 

Yes,  there  was  one,  the  fretting  of  the  human  spirit, 
whereas  his  own  did  not  fret.  What  he  could  interpret  ex- 
istence into  was  to  him  satisfying.  For  himself  he  longed 
and  wished  for  nothing,  except  to  hold  himself  open,  as  he 
indeed  held  himself,  for  the  moods  of  Nature  to  play  upon. 
Yet  in  that  bedroom  upstairs  he  had  left  one,  asleep  indeed  by 
the  mere  exercise  of  a  stronger  will  on  his,  who  would  to- 
morrow awake  and  combat  and  perhaps  succumb  to  forces 
that  were  stronger  than  he.  For  himself,  he  combatted  with 
no  force;  he  but  yielded  in  welcome  to  what  to  him  was 
irresistible.  But  Evelyn,  who  slept  now,  would  awake  to  try 
his  strength  against  another.  Which  was  right? 


SEVENTH 


'LADYS  ELLINGTON,  as  has  been  remarked,  was 
not  in  the  least  ill-natured,  and  never  even  hinted 
ill-natured  things  against  anybody  unless  she  was 
certain  to  be  undiscovered.  So,  as  all  the  world 
knew,  since  she  was  not  "  quite  devoted,"  a  phrase  of  her's, 
to  her  mother-in-law,  the  merest  elements  of  wisdom  de- 
manded of  her  that  she  should  be  unreserved  in  her  com- 
mendation of  Madge's  engagement.  Unreserved,  in  conse- 
quence, she  was,  even  to  her  own  husband.  He  also  was 
quite  unreserved,  but  his  unreserve  was  whiskered  and  red- 
faced  like  himself,  and  bore  not  the  slightest  resemblance  to 
his  wife's  voluble  raptures. 

"  Seems  to  me,"  he  said,  "  that  Madge  has  married  him 
for  his  money.  Don't  believe  she  loves  him.  Cold-blooded 
fish  like  that.  Don't  tell  me.  Hate  a  girl  marrying  for 
money.  American  and  so  on.  Good  love  match,  like  you 
and  me,  Gladys.  I  hadn't  a  sou,  you  hadn't  a  penny.  Same 
sort  of  thing,  eh  ?" 

Lord  Ellington  usually  ended  his  sentences  with  "Eh?" 
If  he  did  not  end  them  with  "  Eh  ?"  he  ended  them  with 
"What?"  The  effect  in  either  case  was  the  same,  for,  like 
Pilate,  he  did  not  wait  for  an  answer,  "  Eh  "  or  "  what," 
in  fact,  meant  that  he  had  not  finished ;  if  he  had  finished,  he 
ended  up  his  period  with  "  Don't  tell  me."  As  a  conse- 
quence, perhaps,  nobody  told  him  anything.  All  worked  to- 
gether for  good  here,  because  he  would  not  have  under- 
stood it  if  they  had.  He  was  fond  of  his  wife,  and  slightly 
fonder  of  his  dinner.  Why  she  had  married  him  was  a 
mystery ;  but  there  are  so  many  mysteries  of  this  kind  that  it 
is  best  to  leave  them  alone. 

Gladys,  on  this  occasion  (a  speech  which  had  given  rise 
to  his,  in  so  far  as  any  speech  or  connected  thought  would 
account  for  what  Lord   Ellington   would   say   next),   had 
merely  remarked  that  the  engagement  was  very,  very  nice. 
90 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  91 

"  You  seem  to  object  to  him,"  she  said,  "  because  he  is 
rich.  That  is  very  feeble.  I  never  knew  riches  to  be  a  bar 
to  anything  except  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  with  which  you, 
Ellington,  are  not  immediately  concerned.  But  you  are 
much  more  immediately  concerned  with  South  African 
mines.  Now,  he  is  dining  here  to-night,  and  so  is  Madge. 
If  you  can't  get  something  out  of  him  between  the  time  we 
leave  the  room  and  you  join  us,  I  really  shall  despair  of  you." 

A  heavy,  jocular  look  came  into  Lord  Ellington's  face. 

"  You  don't  despair  of  me  yet,  Gladys  ?"  he  said. 

"  No,  not  quite.  Very  nearly,  but  not  quite.  Oh,  Elling- 
ton, do  wake  up  for  once  to-night!  Philip  Home  moves  a 
finger  in  that  dreadful  office  of  his  in  the  City,  somewhere 
E.G.,  and  you  and  I  are  beggars,  even  worse  than  now,  or 
comparatively  opulent.  Ask  him  which  finger  he  moves. 
If  only  I  were  you,  I  could  do  it  in  two  minutes.  So  I'll 
allow  you  ten.  Not  more  than  that,  because  we've  got  the 
Reeves'  box  at  the  opera,  and  Melba  is  singing." 

"  Lot  of  squawking,"  said  he.  "  Why  not  sit  at  home  ? 
Who  wants  to  hear  squawking?  All  in  Italian  too.  Don't 
understand  a  word,  nor  do  you.  And  you  don't  know  one 
note  from  another,  nor  do  I.  Don't  tell  me." 

Gladys  required  all  her  tact,  which  is  the  polite  word  for 
evasion,  sometimes,  in  getting  her  way  with  her  husband, 
and  all  her  diplomacy,  which  is  the  polite  word  for  lying. 
If  he  got  a  notion  into  his  head  it  required  something  like 
the  Lisbon  earthquake  to  get  it  out;  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
a  thing  commoner  with  him,  he  had  not  a  notion  in  his  head, 
it  required  a  flash  of  lightning,  followed  by  the  steady  ap- 
plication of  a  steam-hammer  to  get  it  in.  Also  in  talking  to 
him  it  was  almost  as  difficult  to  concentrate  one's  own  atten- 
tion as  it  was  to  command  his,  for  the  fact  that  he  was  being 
talked  to  produced  in  him,  unless  he  was  dining,  an  irresisti- 
ble tendency  to  make  a  quarter-deck  of  the  room  he  was  in, 
up  and  down  which  he  shuffled.  When  this  became  intolera- 
ble, Gladys  told  him  not  to  quarter-deck,  but  this  she  only 
did  as  a  last  resort,  because  he  attended  rather  more  when 
he  was  quarter-decking  than  when  not. 

"  Never  mind  about  the  opera  then,"  she  said,  "  you 
needn't  go  unless  you  like.  But  what  is  important  is  that 
since  Madge  is  going  to  marry  Philip  Home,  we  should  reap 
all  the  advantages  we  can.  Perhaps  there  is  only  one,  apart 


92  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

from  having  another  very  comfortable  house  to  stay  in,  but 
that  is  a  big  one.  He  can  make  some  money  for  us." 

This  was  only  the  second  time  she  had  mentioned  this, 
and  in  consequence  she  was  rather  agreeably  surprised  to 
find  that  her  husband  grasped  it.  He  even  appeared  to 
think  about  it,  and  suggested  an  amendment,  though  the 
process  required,  it  seemed  to  Gladys,  miles  of  quarter-deck- 
ing. 

"  Eh,  what?"  he  said.  "  Something  South  African?  Put 
in  twopence  and  get  out  fourpence,  with  a  dividend  in  the 
interim  ?  By  Gad,  yes  !  But  you'd  better  get  it  out  of  him, 
Gladys,  not  I.  Lovely  woman,  you  know ;  a  man  tells  every- 
thing to  lovely  woman.  Don't  tell  me." 

This  had  never  occurred  to  Gladys,  and  she  always  re- 
spected anyone  to  whom  things  occurred  before  they  oc- 
curred to  her. 

"  How  very  simple,"  she  said,  "  and  much  better  than  my 
suggestion.  I  suppose  it  was  so  simple  that  it  never  oc- 
curred to  me." 

Ellington  chuckled,  and  as  the  conversation  was  over,  sat 
down  again  to  read  the  evening  paper,  which  had  just  come 
in.  He  read  the  morning  paper  all  the  morning,  and  talked 
of  it  at  lunch,  and  the  evening  paper  all  evening,  and  talked 
of  it  at  dinner ;  these  two  supplied  him  with  his  mental  daily 
bread.  All  the  same,  he  never  seemed  well-informed  even 
about  current  events;  he  managed  somehow  to  miss  the 
point  of  all  the  news  he  read,  and  could  never  distinguish 
between  Kuroki  and  Kuropatkin. 

Three  days  had  passed  since  Madge  had  had  her  last  sit- 
ting for  her  portrait,  and  those  three  days  had  passed  for  her 
in  a  sort  of  dream  of  disquietude  which  was  not  wholly  pain. 
She  had  not  seen  Evelyn  since,  and  scarcely  Philip,  for  he 
had  been  harder  worked  than  usual,  and  last  night,  when  he 
was  to  have  dined  with  them,  had  sent  word  that  he  could 
not  possibly  get  there  in  time.  They  were  to  go  to  the 
theatre  afterwards,  and  he  said  he  would  join  them  there. 
She  had  upbraided  him  laughingly  for  his  desertion  of  them, 
telling  him  that  he  put  the  pleasure  of  business  higher  than 
the  pleasure  of  her  society.  For  retort  he  had  the  fact  that 
when  he  was  not  at  work  he  was  never  anywhere  else  but  in 
her  society,  whereas  two  days  ago,  when  he  was  free  one 
morning,  she  refused  to  ride  with  him  because  she  was  to 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  93 

give  a  sitting  to  Evelyn.  But  the  moment  he  had  said  this 
he  was  sorry  for  it,  for  Madge  had  flushed,  and  turned  from 
him,  biting  her  lip.  But  though  he  was  sorry  for  the  unde- 
signed pain  he  had  apparently  given  her,  his  heart  could  not 
but  sing  to  him.  She  could  not  bear  such  a  word  from  him 
even  in  jest. 

But  this  had  not  been  the  cause  of  Madge's  disquietude; 
Philip's  remark  indeed  had,  so  far  as  it  alone  was  con- 
cerned, gone  in  at  one  ear  but  to  come  out  at  the  other.  In 
its  passage  through  it  had  touched  something  that  made 
her  wince  with  sudden  pain.  But  the  pain  passed,  and  a 
warmth,  a  glow  of  some  secret  kind,  remained.  Disquieting 
it  was,  but  not  painful,  except  that  at  intervals  a  sort  of  pity 
and  remorse  would  stab  her,  and  at  other  times  her  heart,  like 
Philip's,  could  not  but  sing  to  her  for  the  splendour  of  love 
which  was  beginning  to  dawn.  She  could  not  help  that  dawn 
coming,  and  she  could  not  help  glorying  in  its  light. 

Of  what  should  be  the  practical  issue  she  did  not  at  once 
think.  It  was  but  three  weeks  ago  that  she  had  promised 
to  marry  Philip,  and  then  her  honesty  had  made  her  tell  him 
that  she  gave  him  liking,  esteem,  affection,  all  that  she  was 
conscious  that  it  was  in  her  power  to  give.  And  now,  when 
she  knew  that  she  was  possessed  of  more  than  these,  and  that 
the  new  possession  was  not  hers  to  give  him,  a  long  day  of 
indecision,  this  day  on  which  in  the  evening  they  were  to 
dine  together  with  Gladys  Ellington,  had  been  hers.  But 
gradually,  slowly,  with  painful  gropings  after  light,  she  had 
made  up  her  mind. 

She  had  no  choice — her  choice  was  already  made,  and  all 
duty,  all  obedience,  all  honour,  called  her  to  fulfil  the  promise 
she  had  made,  to  fulfil  it,  too,  in  no  niggardly  lip-service 
sense  of  the  word,  but  to  fulfil  it  loyally.  She  must  turn  her 
back  to  the  dawn  which  had  come  too  late,  she  must  never 
look  there,  she  must  for  ever  avert  her  eyes  from  it.  Above 
all,  she  must  do  all  that  lay  in  her  power  to  prevent  that 
brightness  growing.  She  must,  in  fact,  not  see  Evelyn  again 
of  her  own  free  will. 

Then  the  difficulties,  each  to  be  met  and  overcome,  began 
to  swarm  thick  about  her.  First  and  foremost  there  was  the 
portrait,  for  which  she  was  engaged  to  give  him  a  sitting 
to-morrow.  That,  at  any  rate,  as  far  as  this  particular  sit- 
ting was  concerned,  was  easily  managed,  a  note  of  three  lines 


94  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

expressing  regret  did  that.  This,  however,  was  only  a  tem- 
porary measure,  it  but  put  off  for  this  one  occasion  the 
necessity  of  meeting  what  lay  before  her.  For  she  knew  she 
must  not  sit  to  him  again ;  she  dared  not  risk  that,  she  must 
not  give  this  strange  new  rapture  in  her  heart  the  food  that 
would  make  it  grow.  Yet,  again,  she  must  not  act  like  a 
mad-woman,  and  what  reasonable  cause  could  she  give  for 
so  strange  a  freak?  Perhaps  if  she  went  there  with  Philip, 
or  if  she  took  her  mother  with  her. 

Yet  that  did  not  dispose  of  the  question.  Evelyn  was  one 
of  her  future  husband's  warmest  friends.  In  the  ordinary 
course  of  things  they  must  often  meet,  but  till  she  had  con- 
quered herself,  made  sure  of  herself,  such  meetings  were 
impossible.  And  how  could  she  ever  be  sure  of  herself,  to 
whom  had  come  this  utterly  unlocked  for  thing,  a  thing  so 
unlooked  for  that  only  a  few  weeks  before  she  had  consented 
to  its  being  dismissed  as  a  practical  impossibility? 

Then  came  a  thought  which,  for  the  very  shame  of  it,  was 
bracing.  Not  by  word  or  look  or  sign  had  Evelyn  ever 
showed  that  he  regarded  her  with  the  faintest  feeling  that 
answered  hers.  She  remembered  well  the  rise  of  the  full 
moon  on  the  terrace  of  Philip's  house  above  Pangbourne, 
how  he  had  called  attention  to  it,  merely  to  point  out  that 
it  was  not  in  drawing,  how  she  herself  on  that  occasion  had 
noticed  how  different  he  was  to  the  ordinary  moonlight- 
walker.  No  hint  of  sentiment,  no  sign  of  the  vaguest  desire 
towards  the  most  harmless  flirtation  had  appeared  in  him 
then,  nor  had  any  appeared  since.  While  she  was  sitting  to 
him,  half  the  time  he  scowled  at  her,  the  other  half  he  bub- 
bled with  boyish  nonsense.  For  very  shame  she  must  turn 
her  back  on  the  dawn. 

Dinner  was  to  be  early  to-night,  as  the  objective  was 
Melba  and  the  opera,  and  her  maid  came  in  to  tell  her  that 
dressing-time  was  already  overstepped.  She  got  up,  but 
paused  for  a  moment  at  the  window,  looking  out  from  Buck- 
ingham Gate  over  the  blue  haze  that  overhung  St.  James' 
Park,  driving  her  resolution  home.  She  half-pitied,  half- 
spurned  herself,  telling  herself  at  one  moment  that  it  was 
hard  that  she  had  to  suffer  thus,  at  another  that  she  was  des- 
picable for  thinking  of  suffering  when  her  road  was  so 
clearly  marked  for  her.  If  what  had  happened  was  not  her 
fault,  still  less  should  there  be  any  fault  of  hers  in  what 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  95 

should  happen.  Clearly  the  future  was  in  her  own  control ; 
of  the  future  she  could  make  what  she  would. 

Her  mother  was  not  coming  with  her  to-night;  indeed, 
she  seldom  wasted  the  golden  evening  hours  at  the  opera, 
when  there  was  a  rubber  of  bridge  so  certainly  at  her  com- 
mand, and  Madge  went  into  the  drawing-room  to  wish  her 
good-night  before  she  set  off.  Prosperity — and  the  last  three 
weeks  seemed  to  Lady  Ellington  to  be  most  prosperous — had 
always  a  softening  effect  on  her,  and  she  was  particularly 
gracious  to  her  daughter,  since  Madge  was  responsible  for 
so  large  a  part  of  these  auspicious  events. 

"  So  you're  just  off,  dear,"  she  said.  "  Dear  me,  you  are 
rather  late,  and  I  mustn't  keep  you.  But  give  my  love  to 
Philip,  and  let  him  see  you  home,  and  if  I  am  in — you  can 
ask  them  at  the  door — bring  him  in  for  a  few  minutes.  And 
don't  forget  your  sitting  with  Mr.  Dundas  to-morrow." 

"  Ah,  I  have  put  that  off,"  said  Madge,  "  I  am  rather 
busy!" 

"  A  pity,  surely." 

"  Well,  I  have  sent  the  note,  I  am  afraid.  Good-night, 
mother,  in  case  I  am  in  first." 

Philip  had  already  arrived  when  she  got  to  her  cousin's 
house,  and  they  went  down  to  dinner.  Lord  Ellington  had 
got  the  news  of  the  evening  feverishly  mixed  up  in  his  head, 
and  was  disposed  to  mingle  fragments  of  Stock  Exchange 
with  it,  forgetful,  apparently,  that  this  had  been  relegated  to 
his  wife.  But  his  natural  incoherence  redeemed  the  situa- 
tion, and  when  dinner  was  over  it  was  already  time  to  start 
for  the  opera.  While  Gladys  got  her  cloak,  however,  the 
two  lovers  had  a  few  private  minutes,  as  the  master  of  the 
house  remained  in  the  dining-room  when  they  went  out. 
Philip  had  sent  her  that  day  a  diamond  pendant  which  she 
was  wearing  now. 

"  It  is  too  good  of  you,  Philip,"  she  said,  "  and  I  can't  tell 
you  how  I  value  it.  It  is  most  beautiful.  But  why  should 
you  always  be  sending  me  things?" 

Philip  was  usually  serious,  and  always  sincere. 

"  Because  I  can't  help  it,"  he  said.  "  I  must  give  you  signs 
of  what  I  feel,  and  even  these  clumsy,  material  signs  are 
something." 

That  sincerity  touched  the  giri. 

"  I  know  what  you  feel,"  she  said.     "  I  want  to  have  it 


96  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

never  absent  from  my  mind.  I  want  to  think  of  nothing  else 
but  that." 

This  was  sincere  too,  the  outcome  of  this  long  day  of 
thought.  But  Philip  came  a  little  closer  to  her,  and  his 
voice  vibrated  as  he  spoke. 

"  That  contents  me  utterly,"  he  said—"  that  and  the  gift 
of  yourself  that  you  made  me." 

She  gave  a  long  sigh. 

"  Oh,  Philip !"  she  began.  But  the  voice  of  Gladys  called 
to  her  from  the  passage  outside  the  drawing-room. 

"  Come,  Madge.  Come,  Mr.  Home,"  she  cried.  "  We  are 
already  so  late,  and  I  can't  bear  to  miss  a  note  of  Boheme." 

Apparently  to  be  present  in  the  opera-house  when  Boheme 
was  going  on  was  sufficient  for  Gladys,  and  constituted  not 
missing  a  note,  for  she  spent  that  small  portion  of  the  first 
act  which  still  remained  to  be  performed  after  their  arrival 
in  an  absorbed  examination  of  the  occupants  of  the  other 
boxes,  and  whispered  communications  as  to  the  result  of  her 
investigations  to  Madge.  The  fall  of  the  curtain  had  the 
effect  of  rendering  these  more  audible. 

"  Yes,  absolutely  everybody  is  here ;  so  good  of  you,  dear 
Mr.  Home,  to  ask  us  to-night.  Of  course,  it  is  the  last  night 
Melba  sings,  is  it  not?  How  wonderful,  is  she  not?  That 
long  last  note  quite  thrilled  me.  So  sad,  too,  the  last  act,  it 
always  makes  me  cry!  Oh!  there  is  Madame  OdintsefF, 
dearest  Madge,  did  you  ever  see  such  ropes  of  pearls — cables 
you  might  call  them.  Who  is  that  she  is  talking  to  ?  I  know 
her  face  quite  well.  That's  her  daughter,  yes,  the  sandy- 
coloured  thing,  rather  like  a  rabbit.  They  say  she's  engaged 
to  Lord  Hitchin,  but  I  don't  believe  it.  Dear  Madge,  is  it 
not  brilliant?  You  look  so  well,  dear,  to-night.  If  only  Mr. 
Dundas  could  paint  you  as  you  are  looking  now!  By  the 
way,  how  is  the  portrait  getting  on  ?" 

Philip  also  had  risen  when  the  act  ended,  and  was  looking 
out  over  the  house.  Here  he  joined  in. 

"  Evelyn  was  absolutely  jubilant  when  I  saw  him  a  few 
days  ago,"  he  said.  "  And  though  he  is  usually  jubilant  over 
the  last  thing,  I  saw  he  thought  there  was  something  extra- 
special  about  this.  By-the-way,  Madge,  you  are  sitting  to 
him  to-morrow  afternoon,  are  you  not  ?  I  shall  try  to  look 
f»;  my  spate  of  work  is  over,  I  hop*.* 


THE   ANGEL   OF   PAIN  97 

"  Oh!  I'm  afraid  I  have  had  to  put  it  off,"  said  she.  ^1 
couldn't  manage  it  to-morrow." 

She  fingered  her  fan  nervously  for  a  moment. 

"  In  fact,  Philip,"  she  said,  "  I  am  so  dreadfully  full  of 
engagements  for  the  next  week  or  two  that  I  don't  see  how 
I  can  squeeze  in  another  sitting.  I  am  so  ashamed  of  my- 
self, but  I  can't  help  it.  I  wish  you  would  go  down  to  Mr. 
Dundas'  studio  to-morrow  and  tell  him  so." 

Philip  looked  at  her  a  moment  in  blank  surprise. 

"  Ah,  but  you  can't  do  that,"  he  said ;  "  a  painter  isn't  like 
a  tailor  to  whom  you  say,  '  I  am  not  coming  to  try  on ;  send 
it  home  as  it  is.*  " 

Madge  lost  her  head  a  little ;  the  burden  of  the  hours  of 
this  day  pressed  heavily  on  her. 

"  Ah !  but  that  is  what  I  want  him  to  do,"  she  cried.  "  It 
is  a  wonderful  portrait ;  he  said  so  himself.  There  is  a  little 
background  that  must  be  put  in,  but  I  needn't  be  there  for 
that." 

Gladys  Ellington  had  turned  her  attention  again  to  the 
house,  and,  with  her  opera-glasses  glued  to  her  eyes,  was 
spying  and  observing  in  all  directions.  Philip  cast  one 
glance  at  her,  and  rightly  considered  himself  alone  with 
Madge,  for  the  other  was  blind  and  deaf  to  them. 

"  Madge,  is  anything  wrong?"  he  asked  gently. 

"  No,  nothing  is  wrong,"  she  said,  recovering  herself  a 
little.  "  But  I  ask  you  to  do  as  I  say.  I  can't  bear  sitting 
for  that  portrait  any  more,  and  Mr.  Dundas — he  bores  me." 

That  got  said,  also  she  managed  to  smile  at  him  naturally. 

"  That  is  all,  dear  Philip,"  she  added.  "  Pray  don't  let  us 
talk  of  it  any  more." 

"And  you  wish  me  to  tell  Evelyn  what  you  say?"  he 
asked. 

"  Yes,  anything,  anything,"  she  said.  "  I  don't  want  to  sit 
to  him  again.  But  make  it  natural,  if  you  can.  Look  at  the 
portrait ;  tell  him  you  don't  want  it  touched  any  more.  Be- 
lieve me,  that  is  best." 

She  paused  a  moment. 

"  I  am  excited  and  rather  ovenvrought  to-night  some- 
how," she  said,  "  and  you  mustn't  indeed  think  that  there  is 
anything  the  matter.  Indeed,  there  is  nothing.  Tell  me  you 
believe  that?" 

"  Why,  dear,  of  course,  if  you  tell  me  so,"  he  said. 


98  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  I  do  tell  you  so." 

As  has  been  mentioned  before,  there  were  two  Philips; 
one  known  only  to  the  four  people  who  knew  him  best,  the 
other  the  Philip  who  showed  a  sterner  and  harder  face  to 
the  world.  And  though,  since  he  was  with  Madge,  the  Philip 
of  the  inner  sanctum,  where  only  the  intimates  were  ad- 
mitted, was  in  possession,  yet  the  door  of  the  sanctum,  as  it 
were,  opened  for  a  moment,  and  the  other  Philip,  quick  as  a 
lizard,  glanced  in.  His  appearance  was  of  the  most  mo- 
mentary duration,  but  he  did  look  in. 

She  laid  her  hand  on  his  arm  as  she  said  these  last  words, 
then  left  the  back  of  the  box,  where  they  had  been  standing, 
and  took  a  chair  next  Lady  Ellington. 

"  How  full  it  is !"  she  said.  "  Look  at  the  stalls  too ;  they 
are  like  an  ant-heap,  covered  with  brilliant,  crawling  ants. 
How  hard  it  is  to  recognise  people  if  one  is  above  them. 
I'm  sure  there  are  a  hundred  people  I  know,  but  the  tops  of 
heads  are  like  nothing  except  the  tops  of  heads.  How  many 
bald  heads  too !  What  a  blessing  we  don't  go  bald  like  men. 
Who  is  that  walking  up  the  gangway  now?  I'm  sure  I 
know  him.  Ah !  it's  Mr.  Dundas." 

The  sudden  stream  of  her  talk  stopped,  as  if  a  tap  had  been 
turned  on.  Her  eyes  left  the  stalls  and  gazed  vacantly  over 
the  boxes  opposite.  She  was  conscious  of  wondering  what 
would  happen  next — whether  she  would  speak,  or  her  com- 
panion, or  whether  Philip  would  say  something.  Then  it 
seemed  to  her  nobody  would  say  anything  any  more ;  there 
was  to  be  this  dreadful  silence  for  ever.  That  possibility,  at 
any  rate,  was  soon  averted,  for  Gladys  signalled  violently  to 
Evelyn,  and  spoke. 

"  Yes,  he  sees  us,"  she  said.  "  Mr.  Home,  do  put  the  door 
of  the  box  open,  it  is  so  stuffy.  And  Mr.  Dundas  I  am  sure 
is  coming  up.  He's  such  a  darling,  isn't  he  ?" 
^  The  greater  part  of  her  speech  was  justified  by  realities. 
Evelyn  had  seen  them ;  the  heat  was  undeniable ;  also,  in 
answer  to  the  violent  signalling  he  had  received,  mere  polite- 
ness, to  say  nothing  of  inclination,  would  have  made  him 
come.  But  he  had  seen  too  who  sat  in  profile  by  Lady 
Ellington,  and  he  took  two  and  three  steps  in  the  stride  as  he 
mounted  the  staircases.  And  before  Madge  had  time  to  put 
into  execution  her  very  unwise  idea  of  asking  Philip  not  to 
let  him  in.,  he  was  at  the  door  of  the  box. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  99 

"  You  lordly  box-holder,"  he  said  to  him,  "  just  let  me  in. 
How  are  you,  Lady  Ellington?  Yes,  I'm  just  back  from  the 
Hermitage,  to-night  only,  from  three  days  in  the  forest  with 
Merivale.  How  are  you,  Miss  Ellington  ?  I  had  to  come  up 
to-night,  or  I  shouldn't  have  been  able  to  keep  the  appoint- 
ment to-morrow." 

A  sense  of  utter  helplessness  seized  Madge ;  she  could  not 
even  respond  by  a  word  to  his  greeting,  for  his  presence 
merely  was  the  only  thing  that  mattered,  the  only  thing  she 
loved  and  dreaded.  And  he  continued : 

"  Half-past  two,  isn't  it  ?"  he  said.  "  I  could  have  come  up 
to-morrow,  of  course,  but  it  was  necessary  for  me  to  have  a 
morning's  work  at  the  background  before  I  troubled  you 
again." 

Then  Gladys  broke  in. 

"  Too  wonderful,  isn't  it  ?"  she  said,  "  the  portrait,  I  mean. 
But,  Mr.  Dundas,  who  is  that  just  opposite  with  rubies  ?  I'm 
sure  you've  painted  her.  That  great  pink  thing  there,  who 
must  have  come  from  the  west  coast  of  Asia  Minor.  How 
naughty  of  me!" 

But  Evelyn  apparently  condoned  the  naughtiness;  he 
mentioned  the  name  of  the  great  pink  thing,  and  turned  to 
Madge  again. 

"  But  by  half-past  two  I  shall  be  ready,"  he  said.  "  Please, 
if  it  is  not  an  impossible  request,  please  be  punctual.  Art 
takes  so  long,  you  know.  Not  that  life  is  short.  Nobody 
ever  died  too  soon." 

She  turned  to  him,  the  diamond  pendant  that  Philip  had 
sent  her  that  day  glittering  on  the  smooth  whiteness  of  her 
bosom. 

"  I  am  so  sorry,"  she  said,  "  and  I  know  I  ought  to  have 
let  you  know  before,  Mr.  Dundas.  But  I  can't  come  to-mor- 
row. I  wrote  you  this  evening  only,  I  did  not  know  you 
were  out  of  town,  explaining — at  least  saying — I  could  not 
come." 

Philip — the  real,  intimate  Philip — heard  this.  And  it  was 
he  only,  the  lover  of  this  girl,  who  spoke  in  reply. 

"  We  have  settled  that  I  shall  come  instead,"  he  said.  "  So 
your  time  won't  be  wasted,  Evelyn.  You  have  to  paint  me 
too,  you  know,  and  if  you  want  it  to  be  characteristic,  make 
a  study  of  a  telephone  and  a  tape-machine.  Half-past  two, 
I  think  you  said." 


100  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

There  came  a  sudden  hush  over  the  crowded  house  as  the 
lights  went  down.  Philip  laid  his  hand  on  Evelyn's  should- 
er, as  he  sat  in  the  front  of  the  box  between  the  two  ladies. 

"  Half-past  two,  then,  to-morrow,"  he  repeated. 

The  hint  was  plain  enough,  and  Evelyn  took  it,  and  stum 
bled  his  way  out  of  the  box  to  regain  his  seat  in  the  stalls. 
What  had  happened,  what  this  all  meant,  he  did  not  and 
could  not  know ;  he  knew  only  what  he  was  left  with,  namely, 
that  Madge  for  some  reason  would  not  sit  to  him  to-morrow. 
In  his  eager  way  he  searched  for  a  hundred  motives,  yet 
none  satisfied  him,  and  he  was  forced  to  fall  back  on  the 
obvious  and  simple  one,  that  she  was  busy.  Nothing  in  the 
world  could  be  more  likely,  his  whole  practical  self  assured 
him  of  that;  but  he  felt  somehow  as  if  someone  had  leaned 
out  of  the  window  when  he  called  at  a  house  and  had  shouted 
stentoriously  to  the  servant  who  opened  the  door,  "  I  am  not 
at  home."  He  was  bound  to  accept  a  thing  which  he  did  not 
believe. 

Then  he  questioned  himself  as  to  whether  the  fault  was 
his.  Yet  that  was  scarcely  possible,  for  it  was  not  till  after 
he  had  last  seen  her  that  the  knowledge  of  his  love  for  her 
had  dawned  on  him.  It  was  impossible  that  he  could  have 
made  that  betrayal  of  himself,  for  until  she  had  gone  he  had 
not  known  that  there  was  anything  to  betray.  He  and  she 
had  always  been  on  terms  of  the  frankest  comradeship,  yet 
to-night  her  manner  had  somehow  been  subtly  yet  essen- 
tially different.  All  the  good  comradeship  had  gone  from 
it,  the  indefinable  feeling  of  "  being  friends"  was  no  longer 
there.  Was  it  that  the  "  being  friends  "  was  no  longer  suffi- 
cient for  him,  and  did  the  change  really  lie  in  himself?  He 
felt  sure  it  did  not ;  Madge  was  different. 

Evelyn  was  not  of  an  analytical  mind ;  his  inferences  were 
based  usually  on  instinct  rather  than  reason,  and  reason  was 
powerless  to  help  him  here  and  his  instinct  drew  no  infer- 
ence whatever.  However,  Philip  was  coming  to  take  her 
hour  to-morrow,  and  he  would  try  to  find  out  something 
about  this.  Indeed,  perhaps  there  was  nothing  to  find,  for 
he  knew  that  now  and  for  ever  his  own  view  of  Madge 
would  be  coloured  by  the  super-sensitiveness  of  love.  Then 
a  suspicion  altogether  unworthy  crossed  his  mind.  Was  it 
possible  that  Philip  had  .  .  .  But,  to  do  him  justice,  he 
instantly  dismissed  it. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  101 

Gladys,  like  the  stag  at  eve,  had  drunk  her  fill  of  the  occu- 
pants of  the  boxes,  and  turned  her  attention  to  the  stage 
during  the  second  act.  Her  mind  was  rather  like  a  sparrow, 
it  hopped  about  with  such  extraordinary  briskness,  and  ap- 
parently found  something  to  pick  up  everywhere.  The 
things  it  picked  up,  it  is  true,  were  of  no  particular  conse- 
quence, but  they  were  things  of  a  sort,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
act  she  announced  them. 

"  Opera  is  really  the  best  way  of  carrying  on  life,"  she 
said.  "  You  always  sing,  and  at  any  crisis  you  sing  a  tune — 
a  real  tune.  And  if  the  crisis  is  really  frightful,  you  make  it 
the  end  of  the  act,  pull  the  curtain  down,  and  have  some 
slight  refreshment  in  privacy,  and  put  on  another  frock. 
Mr.  Home,  is  that  Mrs.  Israels  there — that  woman  bound  in 
green?  How  nice  to  have  a  husband  who  is  a  magnate  of 
South  African  affairs !  You  can  even  afford  to  be  bound  in 
green;  it  doesn't  matter  how  you  look  if  you  are  rich 
enough." 

Philip  looked  where  she  pointed;  it  certainly  was  Mrs. 
Israels. 

"  Yes,  that  is  she,"  he  said ;  "  but  I  had  no  idea  they  were 
as  rich  as  her  appearance  indicates." 

Lady  Ellington  gave  a  little  gasp  of  horror. 

"  Good  gracious,  I  forgot  you  were  a  magnate  too !"  she 
cried.  "  How  rude  of  me !  But,  really,  you  are  so  unlike 
Mrs.  Israels." 

Then  she  sank  her  voice  to  a  confidential  whisper. 

"  Dear  Mr.  Home,"  she  said,  with  all  the  brilliance  of  un- 
premeditated invention,  "  do  talk  shop  with  me  for  one  min- 
ute. Ellington  told  me  he  had  got  a  little  sum  of  money — 
you  know  the  sort  of  thing,  not  big  enough  to  be  of  any  real 
use — ah,  you  mustn't  tell  him  I  asked  you.  He  would  be 
furious,  quite  furious.  Yes,  and  if  you  could  just  casually 
mention  some  investment  which  might  eventually  cause  it  to 
be  of  some  use " 

Philip — she  could  not  see  him,  as  he  was  sitting  behind 
her,  with  his  arm  on  the  back  of  her  chair — could  not  help 
frowning.  He  was  delighted  to  be  of  any  use  to  his  friends, 
but  sometimes,  as  now,  his  help  was  asked  in  a  sideways, 
hole-and-corner  manner.  Why  shouldn't  her  husband  know  ? 
He  did  not  like  intrigue  at  any  time ;  purposeless  intrigue 


102  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

was  even  more  tiresome.  But  he  expunged  the  frown  from 
his  voice  anyhow  when  he  answered: 

"  Yes,  I  can  certainly  recommend  you  an  investment  or 
two,"  he  said,  "  but  I  can  promise  you  no  certainty.  I  can 
only  say  that  I  hold  a  stake  in  them  myself.  I  suppose,  as 
you  have  this — this  sum  of  money,  you  will  take  up  your 
shares — pay  for  them,  I  mean!" 

She  gave  a  little  laugh  of  surprise. 

"  You  are  too  delicious !"  she  said.  "  You  mean  we  can 
buy  them  without  paying  for  them,  like  a  bill  ?" 

He  laughed. 

"  Well,  I  don't  recommend  that,"  he  said.  "  But  it  can  be 
done.  However,  that  is  not  my  concern,  as  I'm  not  a  broker. 
I  will  send  you  a  note  in  the  morning." 

"  Too  good  of  you !"  she  said.  "  And  you  won't  tell  my 
husband  I  asked  you?" 

"  Certainly  not,"  said  he,  "  though  I  really  can't  imagine 
why  not." 


The  unreal  Philip — the  one,  that  is  to  say,  that  Madge  did 
not  know — had  had  the  door  slammed  pretty  smartly  in  his 
face,  and  when  the  real  Philip  went  to  Evelyn's  studio  the 
next  afternoon  he  had  not  attempted  to  put  in  another  ap- 
pearance. Evelyn,  when  he  arrived,  was  working  at  the 
background  of  Madge's  portrait,  and  he  yelled  to  the  other 
to  keep  his  eyes  off  it. 

"  You  musn't  see  it  till  it's  done !"  he  cried.  "  Just  turn 
your  back,  there's  a  good  chap,  till  I  put  it  with  its  face  to 
the  wall.  I  had  no  idea  till  I  looked  at  it  to-day  how  nearly 
it  is  finished.  I  do  wish  Miss  Ellington  could  have  come  this 
afternoon  instead  of  you — which  sounds  polite,  but  isn't — 
and  I  really  think  I  might  have  made  it  the  last  sitting.  That 
sounds  polite  too.  By  the  way,  what  an  ass  I  am ;  I  never 
made  another  appointment  with  her  last  night!" 

This  was  all  sufficiently  frank,  for  Evelyn  had  managed, 
with  the  healthy  optimism  of  which  she  had  so  much,  to  rea- 
son himself  out  of  his  fantastic  forebodings  of  the  evening 
before.  It  was  left,  therefore,  for  Philip,  a  task  which  was 
not  at  all  to  his  taste,  to  put  them  all  neatly  back  again. 

"  I  really  doubt  if  she  could  have  given  you  an  appoint- 
ment off-hand,"  he  said,  still  fencing  a  little.  "  She  is  really 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  103 

so  frightfully  busy  I  hardly  set  eyes  on  her.  Apparently, 
when  you  are  to  be  married,  you  have  to  buy  as  many  things 
as  if  you  were  going  to  live  on  a  desert  island  for  the  rest  of 
your  life." 

Evelyn  checked  for  a  moment  at  this;  the  healthy  opti- 
mism weakened  a  little. 

"  I  must  write  and  ask  her,"  he  said,  "  or  go  and  try  to 
find  her  in.  I  must  have  the  sitting  soon;  the  thing  won't 
be  half  so  good  if  I  have  to  wait.  It  is  all  ready;  it  just 
wants  her  for  an  hour  or  two." 

Philip  was  conscious  of  a  most  heartfelt  wish  that  Madge 
had  not  entrusted  him  with  this  errand,  and  he  cudgelled  his 
head  to  think  how  least  offensively  to  perform  it.  Then 
Madge's  own  suggestion  came  to  his  aid. 

"  I  wish  you  would  let  me  see  it,"  he  said.  "  Pray  do ;  I 
really  mean  it." 

Evelyn  hesitated;  though  he  had  been  so  peremptory  in 
its  removal  before,  the  impulse,  he  knew,  was  rather  child- 
ish, it  being  but  the  desire  to  let  the  finished  thing  be  the 
first  thing  seen.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  he  so  intensely  be- 
lieved in  the  portrait  himself  that  he  now  felt  disinclined  to 
defer  the  pleasure  of  showing  it. 

"  Well,  you  mustn't  criticise  at  all,"  he  said,  "  not  one 
word  of  that,  or  I  may  begin  to  take  your  criticism  into  con- 
sideration, and  I  want  to  do  this  just  exactly  as  I  see  it,  not 
as  anybody  else  does.  Do  you  promise?" 

"  Certainly." 

"  Very  well ;  stand  back  about  three  yards — three  yards  is 
about  its  focus.  Now !" 

He  turned  the  easel  back  into  the  room  again,  where  it 
stood  fronting  Philip.  And  the  latter  did  not  want  to  criti- 
cise at  all ;  he  felt  not  the  smallest  temptation  to  do  so.  In- 
deed, it  was  idle  to  do  so ;  the  picture  was  Madge,  Madge 
seen  by  an  unerring  eye  and  recorded  by  an  unerring  brush. 
It  stood  altogether  away  from  criticism ;  a  man  might  con- 
ceivably reject  the  whole  of  it,  if  he  happened  not  to  care 
about  Evelyn's  art,  but  he  could  not  reject  a  part.  As  Eve- 
lyn had  said  to  Merivale,  he  had  put  there  what  he  meant 
to  put  there,  but  nothing  that  he  did  not.  It  was  brilliant, 
superb,  a  master-work. 

Philip  looked  at  it  a  long  minute  in  silence. 

"  It  is  your  best,"  he  said. 


104  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

Evelyn  laughed. 

"  It  is  my  only  picture,"  he  said. 

Then  Philip  saw  an  opportunity,  which  was  as  welcome 
as  it  was  unexpected. 

"  I  beg  you  not  to  touch  Madge's  figure  or  face  again," 
he  said.  "  It  is  absolutely  finished ;  there  is  nothing  more 
to  be  done  to  it.  Please !" 

Evelyn  gave  a  snort  of  disgust. 

"  That  is  criticism,"  he  said. 

"  Not  at  all ;  there  is  nothing  to  criticise.  I  mean  it, 
really." 

Now  Philip  was  no  bad  judge,  and  Evelyn  was  well  aware 
of  that.  He  had  been  as  he  painted,  intensely  anxious  that 
Philip  should  like  it,  and  Philip  more  than  liked  it.  The 
great  pleasure  that  that  knowledge  gave  him  was  sufficient 
for  the  time  to  banish  the  forebodings  that  had  begun  to 
creep  back,  and  were  in  a  way  confirmed  by  Philip's  wish 
that  it  should  not  be  touched. 

"  Oh,  Philip,  is  it  really  good  ?"  he  said.  "  I  feel  that  I 
know  it  is,  but  I  want  so  much  that  both  you  and  she  should 
think  so." 

"  I  can  answer  for  myself,"  said  the  other. 

With  that  the  whole  subject  was  dismissed  for  the  time. 
Evelyn  had  given  no  promise  that  he  would  not  touch  the 
figure  again,  but  Philip  on  his  side  was  wise  enough  to  dwell 
on  that  point  no  more,  for  he  saw  quite  well  that  a  certain 
inkling  of  the  true  state  of  things  had  been  present,  however 
dimly,  to  the  other,  and  any  further  allusion  would  but  tend 
to  disperse  that  dimness  and  make  things  clearer.  So  the 
new  canvas  was  produced,  and  Philip  was  put  into  pose  after 
pose  without  satisfying  the  artist. 

"  No,  no,"  he  cried ;  "  if  you  stand  like  that,  you  look  like 
an  elderly  St.  Sebastian,  and,  with  your  hand  on  the  table, 
you  look  like  a  railway  director.  Look  here,  walk  out  of  the 
room,  come  in  whistling,  and  sit  down.  I  am  not  going  to 
paint  you  portrait,  you  are  not  going  to  be  photographed. 
Just  pretend  I'm  not  here." 

^  This  went  better,  and  soon,  with  inarticulate  gruntings, 
Evelyn  began  to  put  in  the  lines  of  the  figure  with  charcoal. 
At  first  he  laboured,  but  before  long  things  began  to  go  more 
smoothly;  his  own  knitted  brow  uncreased  itself,  and  his 
hand  began  to  work  of  itself.  Then  came  a  half  hour  in 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  105 

which  he  talked,  telling  his  sitter  of  his  visit  to  the  Hermit, 
and  the  really  charming  days  he  had  spent  in  the  Forest 
But  that  again  suggested  a  train  of  thought  which  caused 
silence  again  and  a  renewal  of  the  creased  brow.  But  it  was 
not  at  his  sketch  that  he  frowned. 

Eventually  he  laid  his  tools  down. 

"  I  can't  go  on  any  more,"  he  said.  "  Thanks  very  much! 
It's  all  right." 

He  wandered  to  the  chimney-piece,  lit  a  cigarette,  and 
came  back  again. 

"  You  mean  Miss  Ellington  doesn't  want  to  give  me  any 
more  sittings,  don't  you  ?"  he  said.  "  For  it  is  childish  to 
expect  me  to  believe  that  she  can't  spare  one  hour  between 
now  and  the  end  of  the  month." 

The  childishness  of  that  struck  Philip  too. 

"  But  I  ask  you  not  to  touch  it  any  more,  except  of  course 
the  background,"  he  said.  "  Won't  that  content  you  ?" 

"  Not  in  the  least.    It  is  not  the  real  reason." 

Philip  was  cornered,  and  knew  it. 

"  It  is  a  true  one,"  he  said  rather  lamely.  "  After  seeing- 
the  picture,  I  should  have  said  it,  I  believe,  in  any  case." 

"  But  it's  not  the  real  reason,"  repeated  Evelyn.  "  Of 
course,  you  need  not  tell  me  the  real  reason,  but  you  can't 
prevent  my  guessing.  And  you  can't  prevent  my  guessing 
right." 

"  Ah,  is  this  necessary  ?"  asked  Philip. 

Evelyn  flashed  out  at  this. 

"  And  is  it  fair  on  me  ?"  he  cried.  "  I  disagree  with  you ; 
I  want  another  sitting,  and  she  really  has  no  right  to  treat 
me  like  this.  I'm  not  a  tradesman.  She  can't  leave  me  be- 
cause she  chooses,  like  that,  without  giving  a  reason." 

Philip  did  not  reply. 

"  Or  perhaps  she  has  given  a  reason,"  said  Evelyn,  with 
peculiarly  annoying  penetration. 

Indeed,  these  grown-up  children,  boys  and  girls  still,  ex- 
cept in  years,  are  wonderfully  embarrassing,  so  Philip  re- 
flected— people  who  will  ask  childish  questions,  who  are  yet 
sufficiently  men  and  women  to  be  able  to  detect  a  faltering 
voice,  an  equivocation.  Tact  does  not  seem  to  exist  for 
them ;  if  they  want  to  know  a  thing  they  ask  it  straight  out 
before  everybody.  And,  indeed,  it  is  sometimes  less  embar- 
rassing if  there  are  plenty  of  people  there ;  one  out  of  a  num- 


106  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

ber  may  begin  talking,  and  with  the  buzz  of  conversation 
drown  the  absence  of  a  reply.  But  alone — tactlessness  in  a 
tcte-a-tete  is  to  fire  at  a  large  target ;  it  cannot  help  hitting. 

This  certainly  had  hit,  and  Philip  knew  it  was  useless  to 
pretend  otherwise.  And,  as  the  just  reply  to  tactlessness  is 
truth,  also  tactless,  he  let  Evelyn  have  it. 

"  Yes,  she  gave  a  reason,"  he  said,  "  since  you  will  have  it 
so.  She  said  she  was  bored  with  the  sittings.  And  you  may 
tell  her  I  told  you,"  he  added. 

Evelyn  had  put  his  head  a  little  on  one  side,  an  action 
common  with  him  when  he  was  trying  to  catch  an  effect.  He 
showed  no  symptom  whatever  of  annoyance,  his  face  ex- 
pressed only  slightly  amused  incredulity. 

"  Bored  with  the  sittings,  or  bored  with  me  ?"  he  asked. 

Philip's  exasperation  increased.  People  in  ordinary  life 
did  not  ask  such  questions.  But  since,  such  a  question  was 
asked,  it  deserved  its  answer. 

"  Bored  with  you,"  he  said.  "  I  am  sorry,  but  there  it  is ; 
bored  with  you." 

"  Thanks,"  said  Evelyn.  "  And  now,  if  you  won't  be 
bored  with  me,  do  get  back  and  stand  for  ten  minutes  more. 
I  won't  ask  for  longer  than  that.  I  just  want — ah,  that's 
right,  stop  like  that." 

Philip,  as  recommended,  "  stopped  like  that,"  with  a  mix- 
ture of  amusement  and  annoyance  in  his  mind.  Evelyn  was 
the  most  unaccountable  fellow ;  sometimes,  if  you  but  just 
rapped  him  on  the  knuckles,  he  would  call  out  that  you  had 
dealt  a  deathstroke  at  him ;  at  other  times,  as  now,  you  might 
give  him  the  most  violent  slap  in  the  face,  and  he  would  treat 
it  like  a  piece  of  thistledown  that  floated  by  him.  Of  one 
thing,  anyhow,  one  could  be  certain,  he  would  never  pretend 
to  feel  an  emotion  that  he  did  not  feel ;  he  would,  that  is  to 
say,  never  pump  up  indignation,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  if 
he  felt  anything  keenly,  he  might  be  trusted  to  scream. 
Philip,  therefore,  as  he  "  stopped  like  that,"  had  the  choice 
of  two  conclusions  open  to  him.  The  one  was  that  Evelyn 
felt  the  same  antipathy  to  Madge  as  Madge  apparently  felt 
for  him.  The  other  was  that  he  did  not  believe  Madge  had 
said  what  he  had  reported  her  to  have  said.  But  neither 
conclusion  was  very  consoling;  the  second  because,  though 
all  men  are  liars,  they  do  not  like  the  recognition  of  this  fact, 
especially  if  they  have  spoken  truly. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  107 

Yet  the  other  choice  was  even  less  satisfactory,  for  he  him- 
self did  not  believe  that  Evelyn  was  bored  by  Madge ;  nor,  if 
he  pressed  the  matter  home,  did  he  really  believe  that  Madge 
was  bored  by  Evelyn.  She  had  said  so,  it  is  true,  and  he  had 
therefore  accepted  it.  But  it  did  not  seem  somehow  likely ; 
down  at  Pangbourne  they  had  been  the  best  of  friends,  and 
they  had  been  the  best  of  friends,  too,  since.  Yet — and  here 
the  door  was  again  slammed  on  the  unreal  Philip — yet  she 
had  said  it,  and  that  was  enough. 


EIGHTH 


WAVE — such  waves  are  tidal-periodic,  and  after 
they  have  passed  leave  the  sea  quite  calm  again — a 
wave  of  interest  in  the  simplification  of  life  swept 
over  London  towards  the  end  of  this  season.  A 
Duchess  gave  up  meat  and  took  to  deep-breathing  instead; 
somebody  else  had  lunch  on  lentils  only  and  drank  hot  water, 
and  said  she  felt  better  already ;  some  half-dozen  took  a  walk 
in  the  Park  in  the  very  early  morning  without  hats,  and  met 
half-a-dozen  more  who  wore  sandals ;  and  they  all  agreed 
that  it  made  the  whole  difference,  and  so  the  movement  was 
started.  Simplification  of  life:  that  was  the  real  thing  to  be 
aimed  at ;  it  made  you  happy,  and  also  made  any  search  for 
pleasure  unnecessary,  for  you  only  sought  for  pleasure — so 
ran  the  gospel,  which  was  very  swiftly  and  simply  formu- 
lated— because  you  were  looking  for  happiness,  and  mistak- 
enly grasped  at  pleasure.  But  with  the  simplification  of  life, 
happiness  came  quite  of  its  own  accord.  You  breathed 
deeply,  you  ate  lentils,  you  wore  no  hat  (especially  if  there 
was  nobody  about),  and  under  the  same  condition  you  wore 
sandals  and  walked  in  the  wet  grass,  to  reward  you  for  which 
happiness  came  to  you,  and  you  ceased  to  worry.  Indeed,  in 
a  few  days,  for  London  flies  on  the  wings  of  a  dove  to  any 
new  thing,  the  gospel  was  so  entrancing  and  so  popular  that 
hatless  folk  were  seen  in  the  Park  at  far  more  fashionable 
hours,  and  Gladys  Ellington  actually  refused  to  go  to  a  ball 
for  fear  of  not  getting  her  proper  supply  of  oxygen.  She, 
it  may  be  remarked,  was  never  quite  among  the  first  to  take 
up  any  new  thing,  but  was  always  among  the  foremost  of  the 
second. 

The  other  Lady  Ellington,  it  appeared,  had  known  it  "  all 
along."  It  was  she,  in  fact,  so  the  legend  soon  ran,  who  had 
suggested  the  simplification  of  life  to  Tom  Merivale,  who 
now  lived  in  the  New  Forest,  ate  asparagus  in  season,  but 
otherwise  only  cabbage,  and  had  got  so  closely  into  touch 
1 08 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  109 

with  Nature  that  all  sorts  of  things  perched  on  his  finger  and 
sang.  The  devotees,  therefore,  of  the  doctrine  were  intent 
on  things  perching  on  their  fingers  and  singing,  and  wanted 
to  go  down  to  the  New  Forest  to  see  how  it  was  done.  But 
while  they  wanted,  Lady  Ellington  went.  If  the  simplifica- 
tion of  life  were  to  come  in,  it  was  always  best  to  be  the  first 
to  simplify ;  in  addition,  it  would  save  her  so  much  money  in 
her  autumn  parties.  And  she  could  always  have  a  chop 
upstairs. 

Her  expedition  to  the  New  Forest  took  place  a  couple  of 
days  after  Philip  had  given  his  first  sitting  to  Evelyn  Dundas. 
Madge  at  this  time  was  looking  rather  pale  and  tired,  so  her 
mother  thought,  and,  in  consequence,  she  proposed  to  Madge 
that  she  should  come  with  her.  This  pallor  and  lassitude,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  was  a  reasonable  excuse  enough,  though  had 
Madge  looked  bright  and  fresh  it  would  not  have  stood  in 
her  way,  since  in  the  latter  case  the  reason  would  have  been 
that  Madge  enjoyed  the  country  so  much,  and  had  the 
"  country-look"  in  her  eyes.  In  any  case  Lady  Ellington 
meant  that  Madge  should  go  with  her,  and  if  she  meant  a 
thing,  that  thing  usually  occurred. 

To  say  that  she  was  anxious  about  Madge  would  be  over- 
stating the  condition  of  her  mind  with  regard  to  her,  for  it 
was  a  rule  of  her  life,  with  excellent  authority  to  back  it,  to 
be  anxious  about  nothing.  To  say  also  that  she  thought 
there  was  any  reason  for  anxiety  would  be  still  over-stating 
her  view  of  her  daughter,  since  if  there  had  been  any  reason 
for  it,  though  she  would  still  not  have  been  anxious,  she 
would  have  cleared  the  matter  up  in  some  way.  But  her 
hard,  polished  mind,  a  sort  of  crystal  billiard-ball,  admitted 
no  such  reason ;  merely  she  meant  to  keep  her  daughter 
under  her  eye  till  she,  another  billiard-ball,  it  was  to  be 
hoped,  went  into  her  appointed  pocket.  Then  the  man  who 
held  the  cue  might  do  what  he  chose — she  defied  him  to  hurt 
her. 

Yet  Lady  Ellington  knew  quite  well  what,  though  not  the 
cause  of  any  anxiety  on  her  part,  was  the  reason  why  she 
kept  Madge  under  her  eye,  and  that  reason  was  the  existence 
of  an  artist.  Madge  had  cancelled  an  appointment  she  had 
made  with  him ;  the  day  after  he  had  called,  while  she  and 
her  daughter  were  having  tea  alone  together,  and  Madge 
had  sent  down  word,  insisted  indeed  on  doing  so,  that  they 


110  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

were  not  at  home.  She  had  at  once  explained  this  to  her 
mother,  saying  that  she  had  a  headache,  and  meant  to  go  to 
her  room  immediately  she  had  had  a  cup  of  tea,  and  was 
thus  unwilling  to  leave  the  guest  on  Lady  Ellington's  hands. 
That  excuse  had,  of  course,  passed  unchallenged,  for  Lady 
Ellington  never  challenged  anything  till  it  really  assumed  a 
threatening  attitude.  She  reserved  to  herself,  however,  the 
right  of  drawing  conclusions  on  the  subject  of  headaches. 

The  idea,  however,  of  the  expedition  to  the  New  Forest 
Madge  had  hailed  with  enthusiasm.  They  were  to  go  down 
there  in  the  morning,  lunch  with  the  Hermit  on  lentils — she 
had  particularly  begged  in  her  letter,  otherwise  rather  magis- 
terial, that  they  might  see  his  ordinary  mode  of  life — spend 
the  afternoon  in  the  forest,  sleep  at  Brockenhurst,  returning 
to  London  next  day.  His  reply  was  cordial  enough,  though 
as  a  matter  of  fact  Lady  Ellington  would  not  have  cared 
however  little  cordial  it  was,  and  they  travelled  down  third- 
class  because  there  were  fewer  cushions  in  the  third-class, 
and,  in  consequence,  far  fewer  bacteria.  The  avoidance  of 
bacteria  just  now  was  of  consequence,  hence  the  windows 
also  were  both  wide  open,  and  there  would  have  been  acri- 
monious discussion  between  Lady  Ellington  and  another  pas- 
senger in  the  same  carriage,  who  had  a  severe  cold  in  the 
head,  had  she  not  refused  to  discuss  altogether. 

The  simplification  of  life  had  not  at  present  in  Lady  El- 
lington's case  gone  so  far  as  to  dispense  with  the  presence  of 
a  maid.  She  was  sent  on  to  the  inn  to  engage  rooms  for 
them,  and  a  separate  table  at  dinner  that  evening,  and  the  two 
took  their  seats  in  the  cab  that  Merivale  had  ordered  to  meet 
them.  He  had  not  been  at  the  station  himself,  and  though 
Lady  Ellington  was  secretly  inclined  to  resent  this,  as  some- 
what wanting  in  respect,  she  had  self-control  enough  to  say 
nothing  about  it.  Indeed,  her  own  polished  mind  excused  it ; 
"physical  exercises  for  the  morning,"  she  said  to  herself, 
probably  detained  him. 

But  the  Hermit  proved  somehow  unnaturally  natural.  He 
did  not  give  them  lentils  to  eat,  but  he  gave  them  cauliflower 
au  gratin  and  brown  bread  and  cheese,  and  to  drink,  water. 
Somehow  he  was  not,  to  Lady  Ellington's  mind,  the  least 
apostolic,  for  these  viands  were  indeed  excellent,  and,  what 
was  worse,  he  made  neither  an  apology  nor  a  confession  of 
faith  over  them.  It  was  all  perfectly  natural,  as  indeed  she 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  111 

had  begged  it  should  be.  Therefore  the  leanness  of  her  desire 
went  deep.  After  lunch,  too,  cigarettes  were  offered  them, 
and  she  wanted  one  so  much  that  she  took  one.  True,  he  did 
all  the  waiting  himself,  but  he  did  it  so  deftly  that  one  really 
did  not  notice  the  absence  of  servants.  Then,  worst  of  all, 
when  lunch  was  over,  he  put  his  elbow  on  the  table,  and  was 
serious. 

"  What  did  you  come  down  into  the  wilderness  for  to 
see,  Lady  Ellington  ?"  he  asked.  "  It  is  only  a  reed  shaken 
by  the  wind.  There  is  really  nothing  more.  I  cannot  say 
how  charming  it  is  to  me  to  see  you  and  Miss  Ellington. 
But  I  can't  tell  you  anything.  You  wanted  to  see  a  bit  of  my 
life,  how  I  live  it.  This  is  how.  Now,  what  else  can  I  do 
for  you  ?  I  am  sure  you  will  excuse  me,  but  I  am  certain  you 
came  here  to  see  something.  Do  tell  me  what  you  want  to 
see." 

This  was  quite  sufficient. 

"  Ah,  if  there  happened  to  be  a  bird  of  some  kind,"  said 
Lady  Ellington. 

Merivale  laughed. 

"What  Evelyn  called  a  conjuring  trick?"  he  asked. 
"  Why,  certainly.  But  you  must  sit  still." 

On  the  lawn  some  twenty  yards  off  a  thrush  was  scudding 
about  the  grass.  It  had  found  a  snail,  and  was  looking,  it 
appeared,  for  a  suitable  stone  on  which  to  make  those  some- 
what gruesome  preparations  for  its  meal,  which  it  performs 
with  such  vigorous  gusto.  But  suddenly,  as  Merivale  looked 
at  it,  it  paused,  even  though  at  that  very  moment  it  had  dis- 
covered on  the  path  below  the  pergola  an  anvil  divinely 
adapted  to  its  purpose.  Then,  with  quick,  bird-like  motion, 
it  dropped  the  snail,  looked  once  or  twice  from  side  to  side, 
and  then,  half-flying,  half-running,  came  and  perched  on  the 
balustrade  of  the  verandah.  Then  very  gently  Merivale  held 
out  his  hand,  and  next  moment  the  bird  was  perched  on  it. 

"  Sing,  then,"  he  said,  as  he  had  said  to  the  nightingale, 
and  from  furry,  trembling  throat  the  bird  poured  out  its 
liquid  store  of  repeated  phrases. 

"  Thank  you,  dear,"  said  he,  when  it  paused.  "  Go  back 
to  your  dinner  and  eat  well." 

Again  there  was  a  flutter  of  wings  and  the  scud  across  the 
grass,  and  in  a  few  moments  the  sharp  tapping  of  the  shell 


112  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

on  the  stone  began.  On  the  verandah  for  a  little  while  there 
was  silence,  then  the  Hermit  laughed. 

"  But  there  is  one  thing  I  must  ask  you,  Lady  Ellington," 
he  said,  "  though  I  need  not  say  how  charmed  I  am  to  be  able 
to  show  you  that,  since  it  interests  you ;  it  is  that  I  shall  not 
be  made  a  sort  of  show.  Evelyn  Dundas  was  down  here  a 
few  days  ago,  and  he  told  me  that  all  London  was  going  in 
for  the  simplification  of  life.  Of  course  it  seems  to  me  that 
they  could  not  do  better,  but  I  really  must  refuse  to  pose  as  a 
prophet,  however  minor." 

Lady  Ellington  gave  no  direct  promise;  indeed  from  the 
Hermit's  point  of  view  her  next  speech  was  far  from  reas- 
suring. 

"  It  is  too  wonderful,"  she  said,  "  and  now  I  can  say  that 
I  have  seen  it  myself.  But  do  you  think,  Mr.  Merivale,  that 
you  have  any  right  to  shut  up  yourself  and  your  powers  like 
that  when  there  are  so  many  of  us  anxious  to  learn  ?  Could 
you  not — ah,  well,  it  is  the  end  of  the  season  now,  but  per- 
haps later  in  the  autumn  when  people  come  to  London  again, 
could  you  not  give  us  a  little  class,  just  once  a  week,  and  tell 
us  about  the  new  philosophy?  I'm  sure  I  know  a  dozen 
people  who  would  love  to  come.  Of  course  we  would  come 
down  here  " — this  was  a  great  concession — "  not  expect  you 
to  come  up  to  London.  You  would  charge,  of  course ;  you 
might  make  quite  a  good  thing  out  of  it." 

Merivale  tried  to  put  in  a  word,  but  she  swept  on. 

"  Of  course  that  is  a  minor  point,"  she  said,  "  but  what  is, 
I  think,  really  important,  is  that  one  should  always  try  to  help 
others  who  want  to  learn.  There  is  quite  a  movement  going 
on  in  London ;  people  deep-breathe  and  don't  touch  meat ; 
the  Duchess  of  Essex,  for  instance — perhaps  you  know 
her " 

Here  he  got  a  word  in. 

"  I  am  so  sorry,"  he  said,  "  but  it  is  absolutely  out  of  the 
question.  To  begin  with,  I  have  nothing  to  tell  you." 

"  Ah,  but  that  thrush  now,"  said  she.  "  How  did  you  do 
it?  That  is  all  I  want  to  know." 

He  laughed. 

"  But  that  is  exactly  what  I  can't  tell  you,"  he  said,  "  any 
more  than  you  can  tell  me  how  it  is  that  when  you  want  to 
speak  your  tongue  frames  words.  I  ask  it  to  come  and  sit  on 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  113 

my  finger — hardly  even  that.    I  know  no  more  how  I  get  it 
to  come  than  it  knows,  the  dear,  why  it  comes." 

"  And  what  else  can  you  do  ?"  continued  Lady  Ellington, 
abandoning  for  the  present  the  idea  of  a  class. 

Merivale  got  up  without  the  least  sign  of  impatience  or 
ruffling  of  his  good-humour. 

"  I  can  show  you  over  the  house,"  he  said,  "  or  walk  with 
you  in  the  forest,  as  you  are  so  kind  as  to  take  an  interest  in 
what  I  do  and  how  I  live,  and,  if  you  like,  I  will  talk  about 
the  simple  life  and  what  we  may  call  the  approach  to  Nature. 
But  I  must  warn  you  there  is  nothing  in  the  least  startling  or 
sensational  about  it.  Above  all,  as  far  as  I  know,  it  is  not 
possible  to  make  short  cuts ;  one  has  to  tune  oneself  slowly 
to  it." 

This  was  better  than  nothing,  for  Lady  Ellington  had  an 
excellent  memory,  and  could  recount  all  the  things  which 
Merivale  told  her  as  if  she  had  suggested  them  to  him  and  he 
had  agreed.  Also,  if  there  was  to  be  no  simplification  class, 
it  would  at  least  be  in  her  power  to  say  that  he  saw  absolutely 
no  one,  but  had  been  too  charming  in  allowing  Madge  and 
her  to  come  down  and  spend  the  day  with  him.  Indeed,  after 
a  little  reflection,  she  was  not  sure  whether  this  was  the  more 
distinguished  role,  to  be  the  medium  between  the  Hermit  and 
the  rest  of  aspiring  London.  Thus  it  was  with  close  atten- 
tion that  she  made  the  tour  of  the  cottage,  and  afterwards 
they  walked  up  through  the  beech-wood  on  the  other  side  of 
the  stream  on  to  the  open  heath  beyond,  to  spend  the  after- 
noon on  these  huge,  breezy  uplands. 

Now,  it  so  happened  that  on  this  morning  Evelyn,  after 
rather  a  sleepless,  tossing  night,  had  gone  up  to  his  studio 
after  breakfast  to  find  there  that,  when  he  tried  to  paint,  he 
could  not.  Somebody,  as  he  had  said  once  before,  had  turned 
the  tap  off;  no  water  came  through,  only  a  remote  empty 
gurgling;  the  imaginative  vision  was  out  of  gear.  There 
were  three  or  four  pictures  in  his  studio  over  which  he  might 
have  spent  a  profitable  morning,  but  he  could  do  nothing  with 
any  of  them.  He  had  only  the  afternoon  before  thought  out 
a  background  for  the  picture  he  was  doing  of  Philip,  thought 
it  out,  too,  with  considerable  care  and  precision,  and  all  he 
had  to  do  was  to  set  a  few  pieces  of  furniture,  arrange  his 
light  as  he  wished  it  over  the  corner  which  was  to  be  repre- 
sented, and  put  it  in.  Yet  he  could  not  do  anything  with  it ; 


114  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

his  eye  was  wrong,  and  his  colours  were  harsh,  crude,  or 
merely  woolly  and  unconvincing.  He  could  not  see  things 
right;  it  seemed  to  him  that  what  he  painted  was  in  the 
shadow,  or  as  if  something  had  come  between  him  and  his 
canvas. 

There  was  still  one  picture  at  which  he  could  work,  which 
he  had  not  looked  at  yet,  nor  even  turned  its  easel  round  from 
the  wall,  and  he  stood  for  some  time  in  front  of  it,  unable 
apparently  to  make  up  his  mind  as  to  whether  he  would  touch 
it  or  not.  Then  suddenly,  with  a  sharp,  ill-humoured  sort  of 
tug,  he  wheeled  it  round.  Yes,  this  was  why  he  could  not 
touch  Philip's  portrait;  here  in  front  of  him,  dazzling  and 
brilliant,  stood  that  which  came  between  him  and  it.  And  as 
he  looked  his  eye  cleared ;  it  was  as  if  a  film,  some  material 
film,  had  been  drawn  away  from  over  it,  and  he  examined 
his  work  with  eager,  critical  attention.  Though  ten  minutes 
ago  he  could  not  paint,  now  he  could  not  help  painting.  He 
starved  for  the  palette ;  his  hands  ached  for  the  slimy  resist- 
ance of  the  paint  dragged  over  the  canvas.  On  the  convex 
mirror,  which  was  to  be  on  the  wall  behind  the  girl,  reflecting 
her  back  and  the  scarlet  shimmering  of  her  cloak,  he  had, 
like  a  child  saving  the  butteriest  bit  of  toast  till  the  end,  re- 
served for  the  end  the  big  touches  of  light  on  the  gilt  frame. 
The  more  difficult,  technical  painting  of  the  mirror  itself  he 
had  finished,  putting  the  reflections  in  rather  more  strongly 
than  he  wished  them  eventually  to  appear,  for  he  knew,  with 
the  artist's  prescience,  exactly  how  the  lights  on  the  gold 
frame  would  tone  them  down.  And  it  was  with  a  smile  of 
well-earned  satisfaction  that  he  put  these  in  now ;  he  almost 
laughed  to  see  how  accurately  he  had  anticipated  the  result. 
Then,  after  some  half-hour  of  ecstatic  pleasure — for  at  this 
stage  every  stroke  told — he  stepped  back  and  looked  at  it. 
Yes,  that  too  was  as  he  meant  it — that  too  was  finished. 

Slowly  his  eye  dwelt  next  on  the  figure  of  the  girl.  Was 
Philip  right  after  all?  Did  it  indeed  need  nothing  more? 
He  felt  uncertain  himself.  In  ninety-nine  other  cases  out  of 
a  hundred,  if  he  had  really  not  been  certain,  there  was  no 
one's  judgment  which  he  would  have  more  willingly  have 
deferred  to  than  Philip's;  but  here  he  could  not  help  con- 
necting his  insistence  that  nothing  more  should  be  done  with 
the  subsequent  revelation  that  Madge  did  not  wish  to  sit 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  115 

again  to  him.  It  was  impossible  to  disconnect  the  two; 
coincidences  of  that  sort  did  not  happen. 

Then  the  whole  world  of  colour,  of  drawing,  of  his  own 
inimitable  art,  went  grey  and  dead,  and  from  its  ashes  rose, 
so  to  speak,  the  thought  that  filled  the  universe  for  him, 
Madge  herself.  What,  in  heaven's  name,  did  it  all  mean? 
What  had  he  done  that  she  should  treat  him  like  this  ?  Search 
as  he  might,  his  conscience  could  find  no  accusation  against 
him ;  yet  he  could  not  either  believe  that  this  was  a  mere  wil- 
ful freak  on  her  part.  Then,  again,  he  had  called  two  days 
ago  at  an  hour  when  she  was  almost  always  in,  and  the  man 
had  not  given  him  a  "  Not  at  home  "  direct ;  he  had  gone 
upstairs.  He  felt  absolutely  certain  that  she  had  been  in  and 
had  refused  to  see  him. 

For  another  hour  he  sat  idle  in  his  studio ;  he  lay  on  his 
divan  and  took  a  volume  from  the  morraine  of  old  Punches, 
but  found  the  wit  flat  and  unprofitable;  he  took  the  violin, 
played  a  dozen  notes,  and  put  it  down  again ;  he  leaned  out 
of  the  window,  and  remarked  that  it  was  an  extremely  fine 
day.  But  as  to  painting  any  more,  he  could  as  soon  have 
swum  through  the  air  over  the  roofs  of  the  sea  of  houses 
below  him.  The  studio  was  intolerable;  his  thoughts,  with 
their  dismal  circle  that  ended  exactly  where  it  began  and 
went  on  tracing  the  same  circle  again  and  again,  were  intol- 
erable also ;  his  own  company  was  equally  so.  But  from  that 
there  was  no  relief ;  good  or  bad,  it  would  be  with  him  to  the 
grave. 

Then  suddenly  an  idea  occurred  to  him  which  held  out  cer- 
tain promise  of  relief  at  least,  in  that  he  could  communicate 
his  trouble,  and  he  thought  of  the  Hermit.  Merivale  had 
always  an  astonishingly  cooling  effect  on  him ;  it  was  a  pleas- 
ure in  itself,  especially  to  a  feverish,  excitable  mind  like  his, 
to  see  anyone,  and  that  a  friend,  who,  with  great  intellectual 
and  moral  activity,  was  so  wonderfully  capable  of  resting,  of 
not  worrying;  restful,  too,  would  be  the  glades  of  the  im- 
memorial forest.  And  no  sooner  had  the  idea  struck  him 
than  his  mind  was  made  up ;  a  telegram  to  the  Hermit,  a 
hurried  glance  at  a  railway  guide,  and  a  bag  into  which  he 
threw  the  requisites  of  a  night,  were  all  that  was  required. 
He  had  just  time  to  eat  a  hurried  lunch,  and  then  started  for 
Waterloo. 

The  day  had  been  hot  and  sunny  when  he  left  London,  and 


116  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

promised  an  exquisite  summer  afternoon  in  the  country, 
where  the  freshness  would  tone  down  a  heat  that  in  town 
was  rather  oppressive.  But  this  pleasant  probability,  as  the 
train  threw  the  suburbs  over  its  shoulder,  did  not  seem  likely 
to  be  fulfilled,  for  the  air,  instead  of  getting  fresher,  seemed 
to  gather  sultriness  with  every  mile.  Evelyn  was  himself 
much  of  a  slave  to  climatic  conditions,  and  this  windless 
calm,  portending  thunder,  seemed  to  press  down  on  his  head 
with  dreadful  weight.  Even  the  draught  made  by  the  flying 
train  had  no  life  in  it ;  it  was  a  hot  buffet  of  air  as  if  from  a 
furnace  mouth.  Then,  as  he  neared  his  destination,  the  sky 
began  to  be  overcast,  lumps  of  dark-coloured  cloud,  with 
hard,  angry  edges  of  a  coppery  tinge  began  to  mount  in  the 
sky,  coming  up  in  some  mysterious  manner  against  what 
wind  there  was.  This,  too,  when  he  got  out  at  Brockenhurst, 
was  blowing  in  fitful,  ominous  gusts,  now  raising  a  pillar  of 
dust  along  the  high  road,  then  dying  again  to  an  absolute 
calm.  Directly  to  the  south  the  clouds  were  most  threaten- 
ing, and  the  very  leaves  of  the  trees  looked  pale  and  milky 
against  the  black  masses  of  the  imminent  storm.  Yet  it  was 
some  vague  consolation,  though  he  hated  thunder  anywhere, 
to  know  how  much  more  intolerable  this  would  be  in  London, 
and  he  arrived  at  the  cottage  glad  that  he  had  come. 

It  was  about  four  when  he  got  there,  and  the  first  thing 
he  saw  on  entering  was  a  telegram  on  the  table  in  the  hall, 
still  unopened,  which  he  rightly  conjectured  to  be  the  one  he 
had  himself  sent.  In  this  case  clearly  the  Hermit  was  out 
when  it  arrived,  and  had  not  yet  returned;  so,  leaving  his 
bag  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  he  passed  out  on  to  the  verandah. 
There,  looking  out  over  the  garden,  and  alone,  sat  Madge. 
She  turned  on  the  sound  of  his  step,  and,  whether  it  was  that 
the  dreadful  colour  of  the  day  played  some  trick  with  his 
eyes  or  not,  Evelyn  thought  she  went  suddenly  white. 

She  rose  and  came  towards  him  with  a  miserable  sem- 
blance^  of  a  smile,  not  with  that  smile  with  which,  in  the 
portrait,  she  laughed  at  the  worries  of  the  world  and  all  its 
ups  and  downs.  She  was  not  laughing  at  them  now;  her 
smile  did  not  rise  from  within.  Her  voice,  too,  was  a  little 
strange ;  it  faltered.  And  it  was  clear  that  speaking  at  all 
was  an  effort  to  her. 

"  This  is  quite  unexpected,  Mr.  Dundas,"  she  said.     "  I 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  117 

had  no  idea,  nor,  I  think,  had  Mr.  Merivale,  that  you  were 
coming." 

Evelyn  said  nothing ;  he  did  not  even  hold  out  his  hand  in 
answer  to  hers;  he  but  looked  at  her,  but  looked  with  an 
unquenchable  thirst.  But  then  he  found  speech  and  a  sort  of 
manners. 

"  I  did  not  know  either  till  this  morning,"  he  said ;  "  but 
then  I  telegraphed.  I  fancy  Tom  has  not  received  it — not 
opened  it  anyhow ;  there  is  a  telegram  for  him  at  least  on  the 
table  inside,  which  I  guess  is  mine.  I  did  not  know  you  were 
here  either." 

Then  his  voice  rose  a  little. 

"  Indeed,  I  did  not,"  he  said. 

The  girl  passed  her  hand  wearily  over  her  brow,  brushing 
back  her  hair.  She  was  hatless — her  hat  lay  on  the  table, 
where  still  the  platters  of  their  frugal  lunch  remained,  since 
they  had  started  on  their  tour  of  inspection  as  soon  as  that 
meal  was  over. 

"  Oh,  no,  I  believe  you !"  she  said.  "  Why  should  you 
assert  it  like  that?  But  there  is  a  storm  coming.  I  hate 
thunder.  And  I  was  alone." 

Certainly  the  dreadful  tension  of  the  atmosphere  had  com- 
municated itself  to  these  two.  Madge  was,  at  any  rate,  fright- 
fully aware  that  her  speech  was  not  wise.  But  wisdom  had 
gone  to  the  vanishing  point.  This  meeting  had  been  so  un- 
thinkably  unexpected.  In  a  way  it  stunned  her,  just  as  the 
approaching  storm  made  her  unnormal,  unlike  herself.  But 
she  had  wits  enough  left  to  laugh — the  conventional  laugh 
merely,  that  is  like  the  inverted  commas  to  a  written  speech. 

"  I  suppose  I  had  better  explain  myself  and  my  presence 
here,"  she  said.  "  My  mother  asked  Mr.  Merivale  if  we 
might  come  down  and  see  the  simplification  of  life  on  its 
native  heath.  So  we  came  and  lunched  here.  Then  we  all 
three  went  for  a  walk,  but  I  was  tired  and  headachy,  and 
turned  back.  They  went  on.  I  knew  a  storm  was  coming, 
though  when  we  set  out  it  was  quite  clear.  I  told  them  so. 
And  in  the  last  ten  minutes  it  has  come  up  like  the  stroke  of 
a  black  wing.  Ah !" 

She  shut  her  eyes  for  a  moment  as  a  violent  flicker  of 
lightning  cut  its  way  down  from  the  clouds  in  the  south,  and 
waited,  still  with  shut  eyes,  for  the  thunder. 


118  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  It  is  still  a  long  way  off,"  said  Evelyn,  as  the  remote 
growl  answered. 

"  I  know,  but  if  you  had  seen  the  sky  an  hour  ago.  It  was 
one  turquoise.  And  I  daren't  go  bock  to  Brockenhurst.  I 
must  stop  here  and  wait  for  them." 

"  May  I  take  you  back  ?"  asked  Evelyn. 

"  No ;  what  good  would  that  do  ?  I  may  as  well  be  terri- 
fied here  as  on  the  road.  Also  I  can  keep  dry  here." 

Again  she  winced  as  the  lightning  furrowed  its  zig-zag 
path  through  the  clouds.  This  time  the  remoteness  of  the 
thunder  was  less  reassuring;  there  was  an  angry,  choking 
clap,  which  suggested  that  it  meant  business. 

By  this  time  Evelyn  had  recovered  himself  from  the  first 
stabbing  surprise  of  finding  Madge  alone  here.  Her  terror, 
too,  of  the  approaching  storm  had  drowned  his  dislike  of  it ; 
also,  for  the  moment,  at  any  rate,  his  ordinary,  natural  in- 
stinct of  alleviating  the  mere  physical  fear  of  this  girl 
drowned  the  more  intimate  sense  of  what  she  was  to  him. 
If  only  she  might  become  thoroughly  frightened  and  cling  to 
him — for  this  outrageous  possibility  did  cross  his  mind — 
how  he  would  rejoice  in  the  necessity  that  such  an  accident 
would  force  on  him  the  necessity,  since  he  knew  that  he 
would  be  unable  to  offer  resistance,  of  saying  that  which  he 
had  told  Merivale  only  a  few  days  before  he  felt  he  could 
not  help  saying!  But  to  do  him  justice,  he  dismissed  such  a 
possibility  altogether ;  that  it  had  passed  through  his  mind  he 
could  not  help,  but  all  his  conscious  self  rejected  it. 

Then,  at  the  moment  of  the  angry  answering  thunder,  a 
few  big  splashes  of  rain  began  to  star  the  dry  gravel-path 
below  them,  hot,  splashing  drops,  like  bullets.  They  fell 
with  separate,  distinct  reports  on  the  leaves  of  the  lilacs  and 
on  the  path ;  they  hissed  on  the  grass,  they  whispered  in  the 
yielding  foliage  of  the  roses  of  the  pergola,  and  were  like 
spirit-rappings  on  the  roof  of  the  verandah. 

And  Madge's  voice  rose  in  suppressed  terror: 

"  Oh,  where  are  they?"  she  cried.  "  Why  don't  they  come 
back?  He  can't  make  the  lightning  just  sit  on  his  finger 
like  the  thrush.  Shall  we  go  to  meet  them  ?  Oh,  go  to  meet 
them,  Mr.  Dundas!" 

"  And  leave  you  alone  ?"  he  asked. 

Madge's  wits  had  thoroughly  deserted  her. 

"  No,  don't  do  that,"  she  cried.    "  Let's  go  indoors,  and 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  119 

pull  down  the  blinds  and  do  something.  What  was  that 
game  you  suggested  once,  that  you  should  go  out  of  the 
room  while  I  thought  of  something,  and  that  then  you  should 
come  back  and  try  to  guess  it.  Anything,  draughts,  chess, 
surely  there  is  something/' 

Evelyn  felt  strangely  master  of  himself.  At  least,  he 
knew  so  well  what  was  master  of  him  that  it  came  to  the 
same  thing.  He  had  certainty  anyhow  on  his  side. 

"  Yes,  let  us  come  indoors,"  he  said.  "  I  know  my  way 
about  the  house.  There  is  a  room  on  the  other  side ;  we  shall 
see  less  of  it  there ;  I  hate  thunder  too.  But  you  need  have 
no  earthly  anxiety  about  Lady  Ellington.  They  may  get 
wet,  but  that  is  all.  There  then,  stop  yours  ears;  you  will 
hear  it  less." 

But  he  had  hardly  time  to  get  the  words  out  before  the 
reverberation  came.  Again  clearly,  business  was  meant,  im- 
mediate business  too ;  the  thunder  followed  nervously  close 
on  the  flash.  And  at  that  Madge  fairly  ran  into  the  house, 
stumbling  through  the  darkness  in  the  little  narrow  hall,  and 
nearly  falling  over  the  bag  that  Evelyn  had  left  there.  True 
though  it  was  that  she  disliked  thunder,  she  did  not  dislike 
it  to  this  point  of  utterly  losing  her  head  in  a  storm.  But, 
just  as  her  nerves  were  physically  upset,  so,  too,  her  whole 
mind  and  being  was  troubled  and  storm-tossed  by  this  unex- 
pected meeting  with  Evelyn,  and  the  two  disorderments  re- 
acted and  played  upon  one  another.  Had  there  been  no  thun- 
derstorm she  would  have  faced  Evelyn's  appearance  with 
greater  equanimity;  had  he  not  appeared  she  would  have 
minded  the  thunderstorm  less.  But  she  braced  herself  with 
a  great  effort,  determined  not  to  lose  control  completely  over 
herself.  And  the  effort  demanded  a  loan  from  heroism — 
physical  fear,  the  fear  that  weakens  the  knees  and  makes  the 
hands  cold,  is  hard  enough  in  itself  to  fight  against,  but  to 
fight  not  only  against  it  but  against  a  moral  fear,  too,  de- 
mands a  thrice  braver  front. 

She,  too,  remembered  in  their  tour  over  the  house  the  room 
of  which  Evelyn  had  spoken.  It  looked  out,  as  he  said,  in  the 
other  direction,  and  she  would,  at  any  rate,  not  see  here  the 
swift  uprush  of  the  storm.  It  was  very  dark,  not  only  from 
the  portentous  sootiness  of  the  sky,  but  because  the  big  box 
hedge  stood  scarcely  a  dozen  yards  from  the  window.  Here 
Evelyn  followed  her,  and,  striking  a  match,  lit  a  couple  of 


120  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

candles.  He  also  had  by  now  got  a  firmer  hand  over  him- 
self, but  at  the  sight  of  Madge  sitting  there,  a  sort  of  vision 
of  desolateness,  his  need  for  her,  the  need  too  that  she  at 
this  moment  had  for  comfort,  almost  mastered  him,  and  his 
voice  was  not  wholly  steady. 

"  There,  you'll  be  better  here,"  he  said,  "  and  candles  are 
always  reassuring,  are  they  not?  You  will  laugh  at  me,  but 
I  assure  you  that  if  I  am  alone  in  a  storm  I  turn  on  all  the 
electric  light,  shut  the  shutters,  and  ransack  the  house  for 
candles  and  lamps.  Then  I  feel  secure." 

Madge  laughed  rather  dismally. 

"  Yes,  thanks,  that  makes  me  feel  a  little  better,"  she  said. 
"  It  is  something  anyhow  to  know  one  has  a  companion  in 
one's  unreasonableness.  I  don't  know  what  it  is  in  a  thun- 
derstorm that  agitates  me ;  I  think  it  is  the  knowledge  of  the 
proximity  of  some  frightful  force  entirely  outside  the  con- 
trol of  man,  that  may  explode  any  moment." 

Evelyn  had  turned  to  shut  the  door  as  she  spoke,  but  at 
this  a  sort  of  convulsive  jerk  went  through  him,  and  invol- 
untarily he  slammed  it  to.  There  was  something  of  deadly 
appropriateness  in  the  girl's  words ;  indeed,  there  was  a 
force  in  proximity  to  her  outside  her  control.  He  could  not 
even  feel  certain  that  it  was  within  his  own,  whether  he  was 
able  to  stop  the  explosion.  But  her  previous  conduct  to  him, 
her  refusal  to  sit  again,  her  saying  that  he  bored  her,  her  re- 
fusal even  to  see  him  when  he  paid  an  ordinary  call,  were 
all  counter-explosions,  so  to  speak. 

The  noise  of  the  door  that  he  had  banged  startled  him  not 
less  than  her. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said.  "  I  don't  know  how  I  did 
that.  It  flew  out  of  my  fingers,  as  servants  say  when  they 
break  something." 

The  first  slow,  hot  drops  of  rain  that  had  been  the  leaking 
of  the  sluices  of  heaven,  had  given  place  to  a  downpour  of 
amazing  volume  and  heaviness.  In  the  windless  air  the  rain 
fell  in  perpendicular  lines  of  solid  water,  as  if  from  a  million 
inexhaustible  squirts,  rattling  on  the  roof  like  some  devil's 
tattoo,  and  hissing  loud  in  the  hedge  outside.  The  gurgling 
of  the  house  gutters  had  increased  to  a  roar,  and  every  now 
and  then  they  splashed  over,  the  pipes  being  unable  to  carry 
away  the  water.  But  for  the  last  few  minutes  there  had  been 
no  return  of  the  lightning,  and  the  air  was  already  a  little 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  121 

cooler  and  fresher,  the  tenseness  of  its  oppression  was  a  little 
relieved.  And  in  proportion  to  this  Madge  again  rather  re- 
covered herself. 

"  I  really  am  most  grateful  to  you,  Mr.  Dundas,"  she  said, 
"  for  your  arrival.  I  don't  know  what  I  should  have  done 
here  alone.  Did  you  come  down  from  London  this  morn- 
ing ?" 

Evelyn  drew  a  chair  near  her  and  sat  down. 

"  Yes,  I  settled  to  come  quite  suddenly,"  he  said.  "  I  had 
meant  to  work  all  day,  and  I  did  for  half  an  hour  or  so,  but 
everything  else  looked  ugly,  I  could  not  see  either  colour  or 
form  properly..' 

"  Everything  else  ?"  said  Madge  unsuspectingly ;  his 
phrase  was  ambiguous;  she  did  not  even  distantly  guess 
what  he  meant. 

"  Yes,  everything  else,  except  my  portrait  of  you,"  he  said 
shortly. 

There  was  a  pause  of  unrivalled  awkwardness,  and  the 
longer  it  lasted  the  more  inevitable  did  the  sequel  become. 

"  I  must  ask  you  something,"  said  Evelyn  at  length.  "  I 
ask  it  only  in  common  justice.  Do  you  think  you  are  treat- 
ing me  quite  fairly  in  refusing  to  sit  for  me  again?  For  I 
tell  you  plainly,  you  cheat  me  of  doing  my  best.  And  when 
one  happens  to  be  an  artist  of  whatever  class,  that  is  rather 
a  serious  thing  for  anybody  to  do.  It  means  a  lot  to  me." 

His  words,  he  knew,  were  rather  brutal ;  it  was  rather  bru~ 
tal  too  to  take  advantage  of  this  enforced  tete-a-tete.  But  he 
could  not  pause  to  think  of  that;  he  knew  only  that  unless 
he  said  these  things  he  could  not  trust  himself  not  to  say 
things  less  brutal,  indeed,  but  harder  for  her  to  hear.  He 
could  not  quite  tell  how  far  he  had  himself  in  control.  She 
had  put  out  one  hand  as  he  began,  as  if  to  ward  off  his  ques- 
tion :  but  as  he  went  on  it  fell  again,  and  she  sat  merely 
receiving  what  he  said,  sitting  under  it  without  shelter. 

"  You  have  no  right  to  treat  me  like  that,"  he  continued. 
"  We  part  at  my  door,  as  far  as  I  know,  perfectly  good 
friends  one  day,  two  days  afterwards  I  am  told  that  you  can- 
not sit  to  me  again.  What  can  I  have  done?  Have  I  done 
anything  ?  Is  it  my  fault  in  any  way  ? 

She  looked  at  him  once  imploringly. 

"  Please,  please  don't  go  on  asking  me,"  she  said. 

But  she  could  not  stop  him  now ;  his  own  bare  rights  jus- 


122  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

tified  his  questions,  and  there  was  that  behind  which  urged 
him  more  strongly  than  they. 

"  Is  it  my  fault  in  any  way  ?"  he  repeated. 

Then  a  sort  of  despairing  courage  seized  the  girl ;  she 
would  nerve  herself  to  the  defence  of  her  secret  whatever 
happened. 

"  No,  it  is  not  your  fault,"  she  said. 

"  Then  when  you  told  Philip  that  it  was  because  I  bored 
you " 

"  Did  he  tell  you  that?"  she  asked. 

"  Yes,  he  told  me.  It  was  not  his  fault.  I  made  him  prac- 
tically. He  could  not  have  refused  me." 

She  thought  intently  for  a  moment,  unable  to  see  where 
her  answer  would  lead  her,  or,  indeed,  what  answer  to  give. 
In  that  perplexity  she  took  the  simplest  way  out,  and  told 
the  truth. 

"  Yes,  I  said  that,"  she  said.    "  But  it  was  not  true." 

"  Then,  again,  I  ask  you  why  ?"  said  he. 

She  felt  that  she  must  break  if  he  went  on,  and  made  one 
more  appeal. 

"  Ah,  I  beg  of  you  not  to  question  me,"  she  cried.  "  You 
talk  of  justice  too — is  it  fair  on  me  that  you  use  the  accident 
of  finding  me  alone  here  in  this  way  ?  I  can't  go  away,  you 
know  that,  there  is  no  one  here  to  protect  me.  But  if  you 
by  a  single  other  question  take  advantage  of  it,  I  shall  leave 
the  house,  just  as  I  am,  in  this  deluge,  and  walk  back  to  the 
hotel.  I  must  remind  you  that  I  am  an  unprotected  girl,  and 
you,  I  must  remind  you,  are  a  gentleman." 

She  rose  with  flashing  eyes ;  it  had  taxed  all  her  bravery 
to  get  this  out,  but  it  had  come  out  triumphant. 

But  the  moment  had  come;  all  the  force  that  had  been 
gathering  up  was  unable  to  contain  itself  in  him  any  longer. 
One  terrific  second  of  calm  preceded  the  explosion,  and,  as  if 
Nature  was  following  the  lines  of  this  human  drama,  for 
that  second  the  downpour  of  the  blinding  rain  outside  was 
stayed.  Inside  and  out  there  was  a  moment's  silence. 

"  I  know  all  that,"  he  said  quietly,  "  but  I  can't  help  my- 
self. It  is  not  for  the  picture — that  doesn't  matter.  It  is  for 
me.  Because  I  love  you." 

Madge  threw  her  arms  wide,  then  brought  them  together 
in  front  of  her  as  if  keeping  him  off,  and  a  sort  of  cry  of 
triumph  that  had  begun  to  burst  from  her  lips  ended  in  a 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  123 

long  moan.  Then  the  room  for  a  moment  was  so  suddenly 
illuminated  by  some  hellish  glare  that  the  candle  burned  dim, 
and  simultaneously  a  crack  of  thunder  so  appalling  shattered 
the  stillness  that  both  leaped  apart. 

"  Oh,  something  is  struck !"  she  cried.  "  It  was  as  if  it 
was  in  the  very  room:  Is  it  me?  Is  it  you?  Oh,  I  am 
frightened !" 

But  Evelyn  hardly  seemed  to  notice  it. 

"  That  is  why — because  I  love  you,"  he  said  again. 

For  the  moment  Madge  could  neither  speak  nor  move. 
That  sudden  double  shock,  the  utter  surprise  of  it  all,  and, 
deep  down  in  her  heart,  the  tumult  of  joy,  stunned  her. 
Then  she  raised  her  eyes  and  looked  at  him. 

"  You  must  go  away  at  once,  or  I,"  she  said.  "  We  can't 
sit  in  the  same  room." 

"  But  you  don't  hate  me,  you  don't  hate  me  for  what  I 
have  said?"  cried  he. 

"  Hate  you  ?"  she  said.  "  No,  no,  I" — and  a  sob  for  the 
moment  choked  her — "  no,  you  must  not  think  I  hate  you." 

Just  then  the  sound  of  a  footfall  outside  and  a  voice  in 
the  hall  struck  in  upon  them,  and  Madge's  name  was  called. 
In  another  moment  the  door  opened  and  Lady  Ellington  en- 
tered, followed  by  Merivale. 

"  Ah,  there  you  are,  Madge !"  she  said.  "  Has  it  not  been 

appalling?  A  tree  was  struck  close  to Mr.  Dundas?" 

she  said,  breaking  off. 

Evelyn  came  a  step  forward.  By  a  difficult,  but  on  the 
whole  a  merciful  arrangement,  whatever  private  crisis  we 
pass  through,  it  is  essential  that  the  ordinary  forms  of  life 
be  observed.  The  solid  wood  may  be  rent  and  shattered,  but 
the  veneer  must  remain  intact.  This  is  merciful  because  our 
thoughts  are  necessarily  occupied  in  this  way  with  trivial 
things,  whereas  if  they  were  suffered  to  dwell  entirely  with- 
in, no  brain  could  stand  the  strain. 

"  Yes,  I  got  here  just  before  the  storm  began,"  he  said, 
"  and  Miss  Ellington  and  I  have  been  keeping  each  other 
company.  We  both  hate  thunder." 

Madge,  too,  played  at  trivialities. 

"  Ah,  mother,  you  are  drenched,  soaking !"  she  cried. 
"What  will  you  do?" 

"  I  really  urge  you  not  to  wait,"  said  Merivale.  "  Let  me 
show  you  a  room ;  get  your  things  off  and  wrap  up  in  blan- 


124  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

kets  till  your  maid  can  come  from  Brockenhurst  with  some 
clothes.    I  will  send  a  boy  in  with  a  note  at  once." 

Madge  went  upstairs  with  her  mother  to  assist  her,  and 
Merivale  came  down  again  to  rejoin  Evelyn. 

"  I've  only  just  seen  your  telegram,"  he  said,  "  but  I'm 
delighted  you  have  come.  That's  a  brave  woman,  that  Lady 
Ellington.  A  tree  was  struck  only  a  few  yards  from  us,  and 
she  merely  remarked  that  it  was  a  great  waste  of  electricity. 
But  I'm  glad  it  was  wasted  on  the  tree  and  not  me." 

He  scribbled  a  few  lines  and  addressed  them  to  Lady  El- 
lington's maid,  and  went  off  to  get  somebody  to  take  the 
note  into  Brockenhurst.  Then  he  came  back  to  Evelyn. 

The  latter  had  not  gone  back  to  the  room  where  he  and 
Madge  had  sat  during  the  storm,  but  was  out  on  the  veran- 
dah.   Just  opposite,  on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  was  the 
tree  that  had  been  struck,  not  a  hundred  yards  distant.    One 
branch,  as  if  in  a  burst  of  infernal  anger  on  the  part  of  the 
lightning,  had  been  torn  off,  as  a  spider  tears  off  the  wing  of 
a  fly,  and  down  the  center  of  the  trunk  from  top  to  bottom 
was  scored  a  white  mark,  where  the  wood  showed  through 
the  torn  bark.     But  the  tree  stood  still,  no  uprooting  had 
taken  place;  but  even  now,  in  this  windless  calm,  its  leaves 
were  falling — green,  vigorous  leaves,  that  seemed  to  know 
that  the  trunk  and  the  sap  that  sustained  them  were  dead. 
They  fell  in  showers,  a  continuous  rain  of  leaves,  until  the 
ground  beneath  was  thick  with  them.    All  the  pride  of  the 
beech's  summer  glory  was  done ;  in  an  hour  or  two  the  tree 
would  be  as  leafless  as  when  the  gales  of  December  whistled 
through  it.    What  mysterious  telegraphy  of  this  murderous 
disaster  had  passed  through  the  huge  trunk,  that  had  sent 
the  message  to  the  uttermost  foliage  like  this ;  some  message 
which  each  leaf  knew  to  be  terribly  true,  so  that  it  did  not 
wait  for  the  dismantlement  of  the  autumn,  but  even  now,  in 
full  vigour  of  green  growth,  just  fell  and  died?    Somehow 
that  seemed  to  Evelyn  very  awful  and  very  inevitable ;  the 
citadel  had  fallen,  struck  by  a  bolt  from  above,  and  in  the 
uttermost  outworks    the    denizens    laid    down  their  arms. 
Something,  too,  of  the  sort  had  happened  to  himself  in  the 
last  hour;  he  had  told  Madge  the  secret  of  his  life,  that 
which  made  every  artery  fill  and  throb  with  swift  electrical 
pulsation  of  rapturous  blood,  and  it  had  all  passed  into 
nothingness.    She  had  said  she  did  not  hate  him ;  that  was 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  125 

all.  His  recollection,  indeed,  of  what  had  happened  after 
he  had  told  her  was  still  rather  dim  and  hazy;  there  had 
been  a  terrific  clap  of  thunder,  she  had  said  she  did  not  hate 
him ;  then  her  mother  and  Merivale  came  in. 

Then,  as  the  falling  leaves  from  the  tree  might  be  gath- 
ered and  put  in  a  heap,  at  any  rate,  the  shattered  fragments 
of  the  afternoon  began  to  piece  themselves  together  again. 
She  had  confessed  that  she  had  said  he  bored  her,  she  had 
confessed  also  that  that  was  not  true.  What  did  that  mean  ? 
She  had  said  she  did  not  hate  him.  What  did  that  mean? 
And  was  her  utter  disorderment  of  mind,  that  hopeless,  ap- 
pealing agitation  which  had  been  so  present  in  her  manner 
throughout,  merely  the  result  of  the  thunderous  air?  Or 
was  there  something  else  that  agitated  her,  his  presence,  the 
knowledge  that  she  had  behaved  inexplicably?  And — was 
it  possible  that  the  tree  should  live  again  after  that  rending 
furrow  had  been  scored  on  it? 

Merivale  soon  returned,  still  smilingly  unruffled,  and  still 
in  soaking  clothes.  But  he  seemed  to  be  unconscious  of 
them,  and  sat  down  in  the  verandah  by  Evelyn.  Since  that 
terrific  clap  there  had  been  no  return  of  the  thunder,  but  the 
rain  was  beginning  to  fall  again,  slow,  steady,  and  sullen 
from  the  low  and  dripping  sky.  He  saw  at  once  that  some- 
thing had  happened  to  Evelyn ;  he  was  trembling  like  some 
startled  animal.  But  since  he  held  that  to  force  or  even 
suggest  a  confidence  was  a  form  of  highway  robbery,  he  for- 
bore from  any  questioning. 

"  So  you  were  with  Miss  Ellington  during  the  storm,"  he 
said.  "  How  I  love  that  superb  violence  of  elements !  It  is 
such  a  relief  to  know  that  there  are  still  forces  in  the  world 
which  are  quite  untamable,  and  that  by  no  possibility  can 
Lady  Ellington  divert  the  lightning  into  accumulators,  which 
will  light  our  houses." 

Evelyn  turned  on  him  a  perfectly  vacant  face ;  he  seemed 
not  to  have  heard  even. 

"  What  did  Lady  Ellington  do?"  he  asked. 

"  She  attended  when  I  talked  to  her,"  said  the  Hermit, 
with  pardonable  severity. 

Evelyn  pulled  himself  together. 

"  Look  here,  something's  happened,"  he  said  briefly.  "  It's 
— I've  told  her  that  I  love  her.  And  that's  all ;  it's  a  rope 
dangling  in  the  air,  nothing  more  happened.  She  just  said 


126  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

I  had  better  go  to  another  room.  She  made  no  direct  an- 
swer at  all ;  she  wasn't  even  shocked." 

Then  the  tiny  details  began  to  be  gathered  in  his  mind, 
as  if  a  man  swept  the  fallen  leaves  from  the  stricken  tree 
into  a  heap. 

"  She  gave  a  sort  of  cry,"  he  said,  "  but  at  the  end  it  was 
a  moan.  She  threw  her  arms  wide,  and  then  held  them  to 
keep  me  off.  What  does  it  mean  ?  What  does  it  all  mean  ?" 

He  got  up  quickly  and  began  walking  up  and  down  the 
verandah. 

"  Where  is  she  ?"  he  said.  "  I  must  see  her  again.  I  must 
say  what  I  said  again,  and  tell  her  she  must  answer  me." 

The  Hermit,  for  all  his  inhuman  life,  had  some  glimmer- 
ings of  sense. 

"  You  must  do  nothing  of  the  sort,"  he  said.  "  You  don't 
seem  to  realise  what  you  have  done  already.  Why,  she  is 
engaged  to  Philip,  to  your  friend,  and  you  have  told  her  you 
love  her.  Good  gracious,  is  not  that  enough  to  make  her 
moan  ?" 

"  I  told  you  I  should  a  week  ago,"  said  Evelyn. 

"  Yes,  but  you  told  me  that  conditionally.  You  said  you 

would  do  so  when  you  saw  she  loved  you.  Instead 

Good  heavens !  Evelyn,  you  must  be  unaware  of  what  you 
have  done.  You  were  left  with  the  girl  during  a  thunder- 
storm, a  thing  that  excites  you  and  terrifies  her,  and  you  took 
advantage  of  your  excitement  and  her  terror  to  say  this. 
It's  ugly ;  it's  beastly.  But  I  can  say  it  isn't  like  you." 

Evelyn  showed  no  sign  of  resenting  this.  As  far  as  the 
mere  criticism  of  what  he  had  done  was  concerned,  he  ap- 
peared merely  to  feel  a  speculator's  interest  in  how  it  all 
struck  another  spectator.  Even  Lady  Ellington's  hard, 
polished  mind  could  not  have  presented  a  surface  more  im- 
pervious to  scratches. 

"  You  speak  as  if  I  did  it  all  intentionally,"  he  remarked. 
"  But  I  never  intended  anything  less.  It  had  nothing  to  do 
with  what  I  could  control.  I  had  no  more  power  over  it  than 
I  had  over  the  thunderstorm.  After  all,  you  don't  blame 
your  thrush  for  eating  worms.  If  one  acts  instinctively, 
nobody  has  any  right  to  blame  me.  Besides,  I  don't  want 
your  moral  judgment.  I  just  want  to  know  what  it  means. 
You  have  called  me  a  Pagan  before  now,  and  I  did  not  deny 
it.  But  there  I  am.  I  don't  happen  to  like  the  colour  of  your 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  1271 

hair,  but  I  accept  it.  It  seems  to  me  buttery,  if  you  want  to 
know.  And  I  seem  to  you  Pagan,  without  conscience,  you 
think  I  have  acted  uglily.  Very  well." 

Merivale  hesitated  a  moment;  he  had  no  desire  to  say 
hard  things  because  they  were  hard.  On  the  other  hand,  he 
felt  that  the  game  must  be  played,  rules  had  to  be  observed, 
or  human  life  broke  up  in  confusion,  as  if  the  fielders  in  a 
game,  of  cricket  would  not  run  after  the  ball  or  the  bowler 
bowl.  He  himself  did  not  go  in  for  cricket,  he  deliberately 
stood  aside,  but  the  rules  were  binding  on  those  who  played. 
Yet  it  was  no  use  trying  to  convince  a  person  who  funda- 
mentally disagreed. 

"  Well,  you  asked  me,"  he  said,  "  and  I  have  given  you  my 
opinion.  That's  all.  Nobody's  opinion  is  binding  on  any- 
one else.  But  I  do  ask  you  to  think  it  over." 

Evelyn  gave  a  little  click  of  impatience. 

"  Think  it  over !"  he  said.  "  What  else  do  you  suppose  I 
should  be  thinking  about,  or  what  else  have  I  thought  about 
for  days  ?" 

Merivale  shook  his  head. 

"  Try  to  get  outside  yourself,  I  mean,  and  look  at  what 
you  have  done  from  any  other  standpoint  than  your  own. 
You  say  you  couldn't  help  telling  her.  Well,  there  are  cer- 
tain things  one  has  got  to  help,  else " 

He  stopped ;  it  was  no  use  talking.  But  Evelyn  wanted  to 
hear. 

"  Else  ?"  he  suggested. 

"  Else  you  had  better  not  mix  with  other  people  at  all," 
said  Merivale.  "  You  have  better  reason  for  turning  hermit 
than  I.  You  have  told  a  girl  who  is  engaged  to  your  friend 
that  you  love  her.  Think  over  that !" 


NINTH 


XN  spite  of  her  wetting  Lady  Ellington  felt  she  had 
had  a  most  interesting  day,  when,  an  hour  later, 
she  drove  back  with  Madge  and  her  maid  to  Brock- 
enhurst.  She  was  not  in  the  least  afraid  of  having 
caught  cold,  because  her  physical  constitution  was,  it  may  al- 
most be  said,  as  impervious  to  external  conditions  as  her 
mind.  That  frightful  flash  of  lightning,  too,  which  had  shat- 
tered the  now  leafless  tree,  had  also,  as  we  have  seen,  been 
powerless  to  upset  the  even  balance  of  her  nerves,  and  had 
only  evoked  a  passing  regret  that  so  much  electric  force 
should  be  wasted.  She  could,  therefore,  observe  with  her 
customary  clearness  that  something  had  occurred  to  agitate 
Madge,  and  though  the  thunderstorm  alone  might  easily 
account  for  this — where  Madge  had  got  her  nerves  from 
she  could  not  conjecture,  there  was  nothing  hereditary  about 
them,  at  any  rate,  as  far  as  her  mother  was  concerned — yet 
it  required  no  great  exercise  of  constructive  imagination  to 
connect  Evelyn's  sudden  appearance  with  this  agitation. 
She  remembered  also  Madge's  refusal  to  see  him  the  other 
day,  and  her  rather  unaccountable  postponement  of  the  sit- 
ting. A  few  well-chosen  questions,  however,  would  soon 
settle  this,  and  these  she  delivered  that  evening  after  dinner, 
firing  them  off  like  well-directed  shots  at  a  broad  target. 
She  did  not,  to  continue  the  metaphor,  want  to  make  bull's 
eyes  at  once,  a  few  outers  would  show  her  the  range  suffi- 
ciently well. 

She  had  first,  however,  committed  to  writing  on  half-a- 
dozen  sheets  of  the  hotel  paper  her  impressions  of  the  day 
and  the  conversation  of  Mr.  Merivale,  in  so  far  as  it  bore 
upon  the  simplification  of  life,  and  was  pleased  to  find  how 
considerable  a  harvest  she  had  gathered  in.  Lady  Elling- 
ton's literary  style  had  in  perfection  those  qualities  of  clear- 
ness and  sharp  outline  that  distinguished  her  mind,  and  her 
document  might  have  been  a  report  for  an  academy  of 
128 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  129 

science,  so  well  arranged  and  precise  was  it.  There  were  no 
reflections  of  her  own  upon  the  matter;  it  was  merely  a 
chronicle  of  facts  and  conversation.  This  having  been  writ- 
ten, revised,  and  read  aloud  to  Madge,  she  then  marched 
with  her  gun  to  her  position  in  front  of  the  target 

"  It  was  odd  that  Mr.  Dundas  should  have  appeared  so 
unexpectedly,  Madge,"  she  said.  "  You  must  have  had  some 
considerable  time  with  him  if  he  arrived  before  the  storm 
began." 

Madge  had  been  rather  expecting  this,  and  she  winced  un- 
der her  mother's  firm,  hard  touch. 

"  Yes,  he  had  been  there  about  an  hour  before  you  came 
in,"  she  said.  "  I  think  your  account  is  quite  excellent, 
mother." 

This,  if  we  consider  it  as  an  attempt  to  tfraw  Lady  Elling- 
ton off  the  subject  of  Evelyn,  was  quite  futile.  She  did  not 
even  seem  to  notice  that  such  an  attempt  had  been  made. 

"  And  did  you  arrange  about  your  further  sittings  ?"  she 
asked. 

"  I  don't  think  any  more  will  be  necessary,"  replied 
Madge.  "  Philip  agrees  with  me  too." 

"And  Mr.  Dundas?" 

"  I  don't  think  he  will  ask  me  for  any  more  either." 

Lady  Ellington  considered  this  a  moment. 

"  But  surely  you  had  settled  to  have  one  more,"  she  said, 
"  the  one  which  you  postponed." 

"  Yes,  but  I  think  we  all  agree  now  that  as  far  as  I  am 
concerned  the  picture  is  finished." 

Lady  Ellington  was  not  exactly  puzzled ;  it  would  be  fairer 
to  say  that  though  she  did  not  quite  know  where  this  led, 
she  was  quite  certain  it  led  somewhere.  It  was  not  a  puzzle ; 
it  was  rather  a  clue.  So  she  got  behind  a  bush,  as  it  were, 
and  continued  firing  from  there. 

"  He  is  a  great  friend  of  Philip's,  is  he  not?"  she  said.  "  I 
suppose  you  will  see  a  good  deal  of  him  after  your  mar- 
riage ?" 

This  sharp-shooting  was  frightfully  trying  to  Madge's 
nerves ;  she  never  knew  where  the  next  shot  might  be  com- 
ing from.  But  in  that  it  was  now  quite  clear  to  her  that 
shooting  was  going  on,  it  was  the  part  of  wisdom  to  defend 
herself. 


0.30  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

"  Oh !  I  hope  so,"  she  said,  "  he  is  charming.  I  expect  he 
will  be  constantly  with  us." 

This  was  a  little  disconcerting;  Madge  had  distinctly  had 
the  best  of  that  exchange.  But  she  was  in  the  beleaguered 
position ;  she  felt  that  at  any  moment  she  might  have  to  give 
in.  She  had  a  wild  desire  simply  to  leave  the  room,  for  she 
wanted  to  be  alone,  and  to  think  over  all  that  she  now  knew, 
but  the  clock  inexorably  pointed  to  half-past  nine  only,  and 
to  say  she  was  going  to  bed  would  simply  strengthen  what- 
ever idea  it  was  in  Lady  Ellington's  mind  that  prompted  her 
questions.  Maternal  anxiety  and  solicitude,  though  the  point 
of  view  of  the  mother  was  perhaps  a  little  predominant,  were 
the  moving  causes  of  them,  if  they  were  referred  back  to  pri- 
mary motives;  to  put  it  more  bluntly  yet,  Lady  Ellington 
merely  wished  for  a  guarantee  that  nothing  of  any  sort  had 
occurred  which  might,  however  remotely,  influence  the  mat- 
rimonial design  for  her  daughter  which  she  had  formed  and 
Madge  had  agreed  to  carry  out.  That  she  had  fears  that 
things  were  running  otherwise  than  smoothly — by  smoothly 
being  meant  that  the  marriage  would  take  place  on  the  twen- 
ty-eighth of  the  month — would  be  an  overstatement  of  the 
idea  that  prompted  these  questions,  but  she  certainly  wished 
for  some  convincing  word  that  she  need  have  none. 

Now,  in  the  art  of  conversation  as  generally  expounded, 
provision  is  not  made  for  one  very  important  and  common 
contingency.  Of  the  two  conversationalists  one  may  be  will- 
ing to  talk  of  anything  in  the  world  except  one  subject,  the 
other  may  for  the  time  wish  to  talk  about  no  other  than  that, 
and  thus  conversation  becomes  difficult.  But  it  would  often 
be  a  tactical  error — a  thing  of  which  Lady  Ellington  was 
seldom  guilty — for  the  person  who  wishes  to  speak  of  one 
subject  only  to  batter  the  other  with  too  many  questions  on  it. 
It  is  often  better  to  sit  quietly  down  and  wait,  refusing  with 
what  politeness  there  may  be  handy  to  talk  of  anything  else, 
and  simply  let  silence  do  its  stealthy  work — for  awkward 
silences  are  wearing,  and  the  wearing  effect  is  inevitably  felt 
"by  the  side  which  is  willing-  to  talk  of  any  but  the  one  subject. 
Lady  Ellington  perhaps  had  never  formulated  this  in  all  its 
naked  simplicity,  but  she  had  often  before  now  put  the  theory 
into  practice  with  masterly  effect,  and  she  did  so  now.  There 
was,  so  to  speak,  but  one  gate  through  which  the  beleaguered 
garrison  could  make  a  sortie:  round  that  she  concentrated 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  131 

her  forces.  The  beleaguered  garrison  knowing  that,  tried  to 
make  a  sortie  through  every  other  gate  first. 

A  long  silence. 

"  That  was  a  terrible  storm  this  afternoon,"  said  Madge. 
"  The  rain  fell  in  bucketsfull.  I  saw  there  were  quite  deep 
channels  across  the  road  along  which  we  drove  back  herej 
which  it  had  made." 

"  I  did  not  notice  them,"  said  Lady  Ellington. 

Silence. 

"  Fancy  Mr.  Merivale  cooking  for  himself  and  doing  all 
the  housework,"  said  Madge. 

"  Fancy !"  said  Lady  Ellington. 

Silence. 

"  Shall  we  go  up  after  breakfast  to-morrow  ?"  asked 
Madge. 

"  Unless  you  would  like  to  go  before,"  said  her  mother. 

There  is  a  terrible  little  proverb  about  being  cruel  only  to 
be  kind,  and  this  benignant  sort  of  torture  exactly  describes 
the  procedure  of  Lady  Ellington.  Should  there  be — and  she 
was  quite  sure  there  was — something  going  on  in  Madge's 
mind  with  regard  to  Evelyn  she  was  quite  convinced  that  it 
would  be  better  in  every  way  that  she  should  know  about  it. 
That  was  the  ulterior  kindness;  the  immediate  cruelty  was 
apparent — for  Madge  was  on  the  edge  of  a  crisis  of  nerves ; 
a  very  little  push  might  send  her  sprawling.  If  that  then  was 
the  case,  Lady  Ellington  distinctly  wished  that  she  should 
sprawl ;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was  nothing  critical  or 
agitating  in  her  outlook,  the  little  push  would  do  no  harm 
whatever,  for  a  mind  at  peace  does  not  have  its  tranquility 
upset  by  vague  suggestions  and  indefinite  suspicions. 

But  since  poor  Madge  was  far  from  owning  just  now  that 
inestimable  possession  of  a  tranquil  mind,  in  the  silence  that 
followed  her  third  fiasco  in  making  general  conversation, 
she  began  to  get  restless  and  fidgetty.  She  opened  a  book 
and  looked  blankly  at  a  page,  and  shut  it  again ;  she  fingered 
the  ornaments  on  the  mantlepiece ;  she  went  to  the  open  win- 
dow and  looked  out  for  a  considerable  time  into  the  hot,  wet 
blackness,  for  the  slow,  steady  rain  was  again  falling,  and 
the  heavens  wept  from  a  sullen  sky.  The  ridge  of  the  forest 
below  which  stood  Merivale's  house  was  directly  opposite 
the  window — she  had  seen  that  before  night  fell — and,  like 
the  thrush  that  came  to  his  voiceless  call,  so  now  her  spirit 


tt32  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

sped  there  to  one  who  called  for  her.  That  sudden  flash  of 
lightning  had  not  been  more  unexpected  than  Evelyn's  decla- 
ration to  her  that  afternoon,  nor  had  the  thunder  that  fol- 
lowed it  come  quicker  in  response  than  she  had  come.  And 
now  she  wondered,  half  with  dread,  half  with  a  wild,  secret 
hope,  whether  he  had  noticed  that  momentary  self -betrayal 
that  she  had  made.  She  knew  that  before  she  could  think  or 
control  herself,  a  cry  had  been  on  her  lips,  her  arms  had 
flung  themselves  wide.  True,  as  soon  as  her  conscious  brain 
could  work,  she  had  revoked  and  contradicted  what  she  had 
done.  But  had  he  seen  ?  How  terrible  if  he  had  seen !  How 
terrible  if  he  had  not ! 

What  had  become,  she  asked  herself,  of  all  her  sober  and 
sane  conclusions  of  a  week  ago?  She  knew  then  that  she 
loved  him,  that  that  which  had  been  a  stranger  to  her  all  her 
life,  no  pleasant  domestic  affection,  but  something  wild,  un- 
barred, almost  brutal,  yet  how  essential  now  to  life  itself,  had 
dropped  into  her  heart,  as  a  stone  drops  into  the  sea,  going 
down  and  down  to  depths  unplumbable,  yet  still  going  down 
until  the  bottom — the  limits  of  her  soul — was  reached.  And 
he?  Was  she  to  him  another  such  stone?  Was  she  really 
sinking  down  and  down  in  his  heart,  so  steadily  and  inevit- 
ably that  all  the  tides  of  all  the  seas  might  strive,  yet  could 
never  cast  that  stone  up  again?  It  was  such  a  little  thing, 
yet  no  power  on  earth,  unless  the  laws  that  govern  the  earth 
were  revised  and  made  ineffectual,  could  ever  stay  its  course, 
if  it  moved  under  the  same  command  as  she.  Each  had  to 
settle  in  the  depths  of  the  other.  Once  the  surface  was 
broken  by  the  little  splash,  down  that  would  go  which  made 
the  splash,  and  whether  in  a  wayside  puddle  or  in  the  depths 
of  mid- Atlantic,  it  would  rest  only  where  it  touched  bottom. 
Such  was  the  sum  of  her  wide-eyed  staring  into  the  blackness 
of  the  rain-ruled  night.  Then,  still  restless,  she  turned  back 
again  into  the  room,  and  faced  not  the  world  of  dreams  and 
solitary  imaginings,  of  what  must  theoretically  be  the  case, 
but  the  material  side  of  it  all,  which  indubitably  had  its  word 
to  say.  On  the  table  was  the  letter  she  had  received  an  hour 
before  dinner,  forwarded  from  London,  and  expressing  the 
pleasure  of  the  donor  in  sending  a  wedding  present;  there 
too  was  her  own  answer  of  neatly-worded  thanks,  and,  above 
all,  there  was  her  mother,  patiently  adamant.  And  the  be- 
leaguered garrison,  though  it  knew  that  the  enemy — that 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  133 

friendly  enemy — awaited  it,  went  out  on  a  sortie  too  forlorn 
to  call  a  hope  through  the  only  available  gate. 

Madge  sat  down  in  the  chair  she  had  occupied  before. 

"  You  have  been  asking  me  a  lot  of  questions,  mother," 
she  said,  "  which  bear  on  Mr.  Dundas.  I  suppose  you  think 
or  have  guessed  that  something  has  happened.  You  are  quite 
right ;  I  think  you  are  always  right.  He  told  me  this  after- 
noon that  he  was  in  love  with  me." 

Lady  Ellington  hardly  knew  whether  she  had  expected  this 
or  not ;  at  any  rate  she  showed  no  sign  of  surprise. 

"  What  very  bad  taste,"  she  said,  "  his  telling  you,  I  mean." 

Madge  had  given  a  sudden  hopeless  giggle  of  laughter  at 
the  first  four  words  of  this,  before  the  explanation  came. 
Lady  Ellington  waited  till  she  had  finished. 

"  What  did  you  say  to  him  ?"  she  asked. 

"  I  hardly  know.  I  think  I  said  that  one  or  other  of  us 
must  leave  the  room." 

"  Very  proper ;  and  he  ?" 

"  He — he  asked  me  whether  I  hated  him  for  it  And  I 
told  him  I  did  not." 

Then  she  broke;  whether  or  no  it  was  wiser  to  be  silent 
she  did  not  pause  to  consider,  for  she  could  not  be  silent. 
There  must  be  a  crash;  a  situation  of  this  kind  could  not 
adjust  itself  in  passivity,  it  was  mere  temporising  not  to 
speak  at  once. 

"  Because  I  don't  hate  him,"  she  said,  now  speaking 
quickly  as  if  in  fear  of  interruption.  "  I  love  him.  Oh !  I 
have  done  my  best;  if  he  had  never  spoken,  never  let  me 
know  that  he  loved  me,  I  could  have  gone  on,  I  think,  and 
done  what  it  has  been  arranged  for  me  to  do.  Philip  knew, 
you  see,  that  I  did  not  love  him  like  that.  I  had  told  him. 
But  I  did  not  know  what  it  was.  I  almost  wish  I  had  never 
known.  But  I  know ;  I  can't  help  that  now." 

Whatever  Lady  Ellington's  gospel  as  regards  the  best  plan 
on  which  to  conduct  life  was  worth,  if  weighed  as  a  moral 
principle,  it  is  quite  certain  that  she  acted  up  to  it.  She  put 
a  paper-knife  into  the  book  she  had  taken  up  during  Madge's 
aimless  wanderings  about  the  room  to  mark  the  page  of  her 
perusal,  and  spoke  with  perfect  calmness. 

"  And  what  do  you  propose  to  do  ?"  she  asked. 

Madge  had  not  up  till  that  moment  proposed  to  do  any- 
thing; she  had  not,  in  other  words,  considered  the  practical 


134  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

interpretation  of  this  bewildering  discovery.  The  fact  that 
her  silent,  secret  love — a  love  which  she  was  determined  to 
lock  up  forever  in  her  own  breast — was  returned,  was  so 
emotionally  overwhelming  that  as  from  some  blinding  light 
she  could  only  turn  a  dazzled  eye  elsewhere.  Her  first  in- 
stinct, at  the  moment  at  which  that  was  declared  to  her,  was 
of  rapturous  acceptance  of  it,  but  almost  as  instinctive  (not 
quite  so  instinctive,  since  it  had  come  second)  was  a  shrink- 
ing from  all  that  it  implied — her  rupture  with  Philip,  his 
inevitable  suffering,  the  pressure  that  she  knew  would  be 
brought  to  bear  on  her.  Yet  the  thing  had  to  be  faced ;  it 
was  no  use  shrinking  from  it,  and  Lady  Ellington's  question 
reminded  her  of  the  obvious  necessity  for  choice.  Her  choice 
indeed  was  made ;  it  was  time  to  think  of  what  action  that 
choice  implied.  But  she  answered  quietly  enough. 

"  No,  I  have  not  yet  thought  of  what  I  mean  to  do,"  she 
said.  "  I  suppose  we  had  better  talk  about  it." 

Then  Lady  Ellington  unmasked  all  her  batteries.  It  was 
quite  clear  that  Madge  already  seriously  contemplated  break- 
ing off  her  engagement  with  Philip  and  marrying  this  artist. 

"  Indeed,  we  had  better  talk  about  it,"  she  said.  "  But  I 
want  to  ask  you  one  question  first.  Has  Mr.  Dundas  the 
slightest  notion  that  his  feeling  for  you  is  reciprocated?" 

Madge  thought  over  this  a  moment. 

"  He  has  no  right  to  think  so,"  she  said.  "  I — I  have  told 
you  what  occurred.  The  whole  thing  was  but  a  few  sec- 
onds." 

"  There  are  various  ways  of  spending  a  few  seconds,"  said 
her  mother.  "  But  you  think  you  spent  them  discreetly." 

Madge  looked  up  with  a  sort  of  weary  patience. 

"  You  mustn't  badger  me,"  she  said.  "  It  is  no  use.  I  did 
my  best  to  conceal  it." 

Then  the  bombardment  began. 

"  Very  good ;  we  take  it  that  he  does  not  know.  Now  let 
us  consider  what  you  are  going  to  do.  Do  you  mean  to  write 
a  note  to  him  saying,  '  Dear  Mr.  Dundas,  I  love  you?'  If 
that  is  your  intention,  you  had  better  do  it  at  once.  There 
is  no  kind  of  reason  for  delay.  But  if  it  is  not  your  intention, 
taking  that  in  its  broadest  sense  to  mean  that  you  will  not 
make  known  to  him  that  you  love  him,  dismiss  that  possi- 
bility altogether.  Pray  give  me  your  whole  attention,  Madge ; 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  135 

nothing  that  can  occur  to  you  in  the  whole  of  your  life  is 
likely  to  matter  more  than  this." 

"  But  I  love  him,"  pleaded  Madge,  "  and  he  loves  me.  Is 
not  that  enough?  Must  not  something  happen?" 

"  I  ask  you  whether  you  intend  to  do  anything ;  that  im- 
plies now  that  you,  without  further  action  on  his  part,  will 
show  him  that  you  love  him.  The  question  just  requires 
'  Yes  '  or  '  No.' '' 

"  And  supposing  I  decline  to  answer  you  ?"  asked  Madge, 
suddenly  flashing  out. 

"  I  don't  think  you  can  do  that.  You  see  I  am  your 
mother;  as  such,  I  think  I  have  a  right  to  know  what  you 
propose  to  do." 

Madge  covered  her  eyes  with  her  hand  for  a  moment.  The 
question  had  to  be  answered ;  she  knew  that,  and  she  knew 
also  that  unless  Evelyn  made  a  further  sign  she  could  do 
nothing.  If  his  love  for  her,  as  she  doubted  not  at  all,  was 
real,  he  must  approach  her  again.  Here  then  were  all  the 
data  for  her  answer. 

"  No,"  she  said.    "  I  shall  do  nothing,  because  there  is  no 

need.    He  must "    And  she  broke  off.    Then  she  got  up 

with  a  sudden  swift  movement. 

"  You  put  it  coarsely,  you  make  cast-iron  of  it  all,  mother," 
she  said,  "  when  you  ask  me  if  I  intend  to  write  to  him  and 
tell  him.  Of  course  I  do  not." 

"  Nor  see  him  ?"  pursued  Lady  Ellington. 

"  If  he  asks  to  see  me  I  shall  see  him,"  said  she.  "  And  if 
his  object  is  to  say  again  what  he  said  to-day,  I  shall  tell 
him." 

Now  to  get  news,  even  if  it  is  not  very  satisfactory,  is 
better  than  not  getting  news.  In  uncertainty  there  is  no 
means  of  telling  how  to  act,  and  whatever  the  contingency — 
a  contingency  known  is  like  a  danger  known — it  can  perhaps 
be  guarded  against,  and  it  can  certainly  be  faced.  How  to 
guard  against  this  Lady  Ellington  did  not  at  the  moment  see, 
but  she  knew  that  danger  lay  here. 

"  And  from  that  moment  you  will  break  off  your  engage- 
ment with  Philip  ?"  she  asked. 

There  was  no  need  here  of  any  reply,  and  Lady  Ellington 
continued : 

"  Now  consider  exactly  how  Mr.  Dundas  stands,"  she  said. 
"  He  knows  you  are  engaged  to  a  friend  of  his,  that  you  will 


136  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

be  married  in  a  few  weeks,  and  he  allows  himself,  left  alone 
with  you  by  accident,  to  make  this  declaration  to  you.  Does 
that  seem  to  you  to  be  an  honourable  action  ?" 

Then  once  again  Madge  flashed  out. 

"Ah,  who  cares?"  she  cried.    "  What  does  that  matter?" 

Lady  Ellington  rose. 

"  You  have  also  promised  to  marry  Philip,"  she  said.  "  I 
suppose  that  does  not  matter  either  ?  Or  do  I  wrong  you  ?" 

"  He  would  not  wish  me  to  marry  him  if  he  knew,"  said 
Madge. 

Lady  Ellington  poured  out  her  glass  of  hot  water,  and 
sipped  it  in  silence.  She  knew  well  that  many  words  may 
easily  spoil  the  effect  of  few,  and  her  few,  she  thought,  on 
the  whole  had  been  well  chosen.  So  just  as  before  she  had 
refused  to  talk  on  any  subject  but  one,  so  now,  since  she  had 
said  really  just  what  she  meant  to  say,  she  refused  any  longer 
to  talk  on  it,  but  was  agreeably  willing,  as  Madge  had  been 
some  ten  minutes  before,  to  talk  about  anything  else. 

"  I  think  there  will  be  more  rain  before  morning,"  she  said. 

Then  Madge  came  close  to  her  and  knealt  by  her  chair. 

"  Are  you  not  even  sorry  for  me,  mother  ?"  she  said. 

"  I  shall  be  if  you  act  unwisely,"  replied  the  other,  and 
Madge,  there  was  nothing  else  to  be  done,  got  up  again. 

There  was  a  slightly  chalybeate  taste  in  Lady  Ellington's 
hot  water  to-night,  and  she  remarked  on  it;  this  was  more 
noticeable  if  the  water  was  hot  than  if  it  was  cold,  but  the 
taste  was  not  unpleasant.  Then  the  question  of  their  train 
up  to  town  the  next  day  was  debated,  and  it  was  settled  to 
leave  that  till  to-morrow.  Indeed,  it  was  rather  a  pity  to 
come  down  into  the  country  for  so  few  hours,  and  their  after- 
noon to-day  had  really  been  spoiled  by  the  rain.  Another 
walk  in  the  forest — it  would  look  beautifully  fresh  and  green 
after  the  storm — would  be  very  pleasant  to-morrow  morning, 
if  it  was  fine. 

All  this,  delivered  in  her  cool,  well-bred  voice,  had  a  sort 
of  paralytic  effect  on  Madge ;  she  felt  as  if  coils  were  being 
wound  round  her  that  hampered  her  power  of  movement. 
She  could  scarcely  picture  herself  as  in  active  opposition  to 
her  mother's  will,  and  the  picture  of  herself  triumphant  over 
it  was  even  more  unthinkable.  But,  as  usual,  she  kissed  her 
mother  when  she  said  "  Good  night "  to  her,  and  her  mother 
offered  her  bromide  if  she  thought  that  the  excitement  and 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  137 

agitation  caused  by  the  thunderstorm  would  be  likely  to  pre- 
vent her  sleeping. 

Lady  Ellington  did  not  propose  taking  any  bromide  herself 
to  make  her  sleep ;  she  did  not,  on  the  other  hand,  propose  to 
attempt  to  go  to  sleep  just  yet,  for  she  had  matters  to  weigh 
and  consider,  and  perhaps  take  steps  consequent  on  her  con- 
sideration, before  she  went  to  sleep.  Like  all  practical  and 
successful  people,  she  believed  intensely  in  prompt  action ;  it 
was  better  in  most  cases  to  decide  wrongly  than  not  to  decide 
at  all,  and  she  intended  before  she  slept  to-night  both  to 
decide,  and,  as  far  as  the  lateness  of  the  hour  permitted,  to 
act  on  her  decision.  The  proposition,  the  thesis  of  her  de- 
cision, was  very  soon  rehearsed ;  indeed,  that  was  the  thing 
that  she  took  for  granted,  but  had  now  to  prove  and  demon- 
strate. There  was  a  house,  so  to  speak,  which  she  was  under 
contract  to  build  and  have  ready  in  a  few  weeks,  it  was  her 
bricks  and  mortar  she  had  to  procure,  and  have  the  house 
solidly  built  and  ready  by  the  required  date.  And  the  house 
to  be  built,  it  is  almost  superfluous  to  remark,  was  the  house 
which  Madge  and  Philip  would  occupy  together. 

Now,  according  to  her  lights,  little  lights,  they  may  have 
been,  "  much  like  a  shade,"  she  was  convinced  that  Madge 
would  be  extremely  happy  in  the  house  she  had  to  build,  for 
she  was  a  woman  of  sense,  and  fully  believed  that  everything 
that  was  sensible,  even  a  sensible  marriage,  was  ipso  facto 
better  than  its  corresponding  equivalent  with  the  sense  left 
out.  Philip  was  in  every  way  a  suitable  match;  he  was  a 
gentleman,  he  had  all  those  solid  qualities,  the  qualities  that 
wear  well,  which  are  so  supremely  important  if  they  have  to 
wear  for  the  remainder  of  mortal  existence,  and  he  was  much 
devoted  to  Madge.  Madge  on  her  side  was  much  attached  to 
him,  and  was  quite  certainly  unemotional.  It  was  therefore 
only  reasonable  to  suppose  that  her  sudden  ascent  into  these 
aerial  regions  which  had  culminated  in  this  evening's  crisis 
were  but  a  Daedalus-flight;  her  wings,  or  the  fastenings  of 
them,  would  melt,  and  she  would,  if  she  pursued  the  unwise 
course,  come  to  earth  with  a  most  uncomfortable  and  shat- 
tering bump.  Evelyn,  no  doubt,  possessed  for  her  something 
which  she  missed  in  Philip,  or  would  have  missed  if  she  had 
looked  for  it.  But  she  had  not  looked  for  it,  she  had  told 
him  that  she  brought  him  affection,  esteem,  respect,  and  he 


138  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

had  been  content.  He  was  content  still,  and  Madge  must  be 
content  too. 

Browning  says  that  it  is  "  a  ticklish  matter  to  play  with 
souls,"  but  Lady  Ellington  did  not  stand  convicted  over  this. 
She  did  not  play  with  them  at  all;  with  a  firm,  cool  hand, 
she  shoved  them  into  their  places.  For  weeks  Madge  had 
accepted,  if  not  with  rapture,  at  any  rate  with  a  very  sincere 
welcome,  the  future  that  had  been  planned  for  her,  and  it  was 
an  insanity  now  to  revoke  that  for  the  sake  of  what  might 
easily  be  a  moment's  freak.  That  there  was  something  very 
attractive  about  this  irresponsible  boy  with  his  brilliant  talent 
and  his  graceful  presence,  Lady  Ellington  did  not  for  a 
moment  deny,  even  when  she  was  quite  by  herself.  But  to 
plan  a  lifetime  that  merely  rested  on  these  foundations  was 
to  build  a  house  upon  sand.  Madge  had  fallen  in  love  with 
externals;  it  was  impossible  that  she  should  be  allowed  to 
make  her  blunder — for  so  her  mother  regarded  it — irrepar- 
able, and  it  was  the  means  whereby  this  should  be  rendered 
impossible  that  Lady  Ellington  had  now  to  determine.  And 
since  she  was  quite  firmly  convinced  of  the  desirability  of  this 
end,  she  did  not,  it  must  be  confessed,  feel  particularly  scru- 
pulous with  regard  to  means. 

All  this  time  Lady  Ellington's  mind  had  not  been  only 
formulating  but  also  constructing,  and  her  construction  was 
now  complete.  Late  though  it  was,  she  drew  her  chair  to 
the  small  writing-table,  so  conveniently  placed  under  the 
electric  light,  and  wrote : 

DEAR  MR.  DUNDAS. — My  daughter  has  told  me,  as  indeed 
she  was  bound  to  do,  what  took  place  this  afternoon  when 
you  arrived  unexpectedly  at  Mr.  Merivale's  house  and  found 
yourself  alone  with  her.  I  feel  of  course  convinced  that  you 
must  be  already  sorry  for  having  allowed  yourself  to  take 
advantage  of  my  girl's  accidental  loneliness  in  this  way,  but 
since  I  gather  from  her  that  Mr.  Merivale  and  I  returned 
almost  at  that  moment,  I  am  willing  to  believe  that  you 
would  not  have 

Lady  Ellington  paused  a  moment ;  she  wished  to  put  things 
strongly. 

— have  continued  to  obtrude  your  presence  and  your  speech 
on  one  to  whom  it  was  so  unwelcome. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  139 

I  have  no  desire  to  add  to  the  reproaches  I  am  sure  you 
must  be  heaping  on  yourself,  and  I  will  say  no  more  on  this 
subject.  It  is  of  course  impossible  that  my  daughter  should 
sit  to  you  again,  it  is  equally  impossible  that  you  should  write 
to  her  or  attempt  to  see  her,  since  you  cannot  possibly  have 
anything  to  say  except  to  reiterate  your  regrets  for  what  you 
have  done.  These  it  is  better  to  take  for  granted,  as  I  am 
perfectly  willing  to  do.  We  both  of  us  forgive  you — I  can 
answer  for  her  as  completely  as  I  can  answer  for  myself — 
with  all  our  hearts,  and  will  maintain,  you  may  rest  assured, 
the  strictest  silence  on  the  subject. 

I  should  like  to  have  one  line  from  you  in  acknowledg>- 
rvxent  of  the  receipt  of  this. — Yours  very  truly, 

MARGARET  ELLINGTON. 

This  note  was  written  with  but  few  erasures,  for  it  was 
Lady  Ellington's  invariable  custom  to  think  her  thoughts 
with  some  precision  before  she  committed  them  to  paper.  Yet, 
late  as  it  had  grown,  she  copied  it  out  afresh,  put  it  in  an 
envelope  and  directed  it,  and  placed  it  on  a  small  table  by 
the  head  of  her  bed,  so  that  when  her  tea  was  brought  in  the 
morning,  it  would  be  patent  to  the  eyes  of  her  maid.  But, 
rather  uncharacteristically,  she  thought  over  what  she  had 
said  in  it  as  she  continued  her  undressing.  Yet  it  was  all 
for  the  good,  likewise  there  was  no  word  in  it  that  was  not 
true.  And  she  slept  with  a  conscience  that  was  hard  and 
clear  and  quite  satisfied.  For  if  one  was  doing  one's  best  for 
people,  nothing  further  could  be  demanded  from  one.  And 
that  she  was  doing  her  best  she  had  no  kind  of  doubt.  Thus 
her  mind  was  soon  at  leisure  to  observe  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  put  out  the  electric  light  after  getting  into  bed.  It 
was  necessary  to  light  a  candle  first,  and  she  made  a  mental 
note  to  refuse  to  pay  for  candles  in  case  they  were  charged 
in  the  bill. 

Lady  Ellington's  postponement  of  the  settling  of  the  train 
by  which  she  and  Madge  should  go  up  to  town  next  day  was 
due,  as  the  reader  will  have  guessed,  to  her  desire  to  get 
Evelyn's  answer  to  her  note  before  she  went.  A  glorious 
morning  of  flooding  sunshine  and  a  world  washed  and  re- 
newed by  the  torrents  of  the  day  before  succeeded  the  storm, 
and  at  breakfast  her  plan  of  spending  the  morning  in  the 
forest,  and  going  up  to  London  after  lunch  was  accepted  by 


140  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

Madge  if  not  with  enthusiasm,  at  any  rate  with  complete 
acquiescence.  She  of  course  must  not  know  that  her  mother 
had  written  to  Evelyn;  it  was  wiser  also,  in  case  she  was 
familiar  with  his  handwriting,  that  there  should  be  no  risk 
run  of  her  seeing  the  envelope  addressed  by  him  in  reply.  A 
very  little  strategy,  however,  would  affect  all  this,  and  in 
obedience  to  orders,  as  soon  as  Lady  Ellington  and  Madge 
had  started  on  their  ramble  this  morning,  her  maid  took  a 
cab  to  the  Hermitage,  bearing  this  note,  the  answer  to  which 
she  would  wait  for,  and  give  it  to  her  mistress  privately. 
This  seemed  to  provide  for  all  contingencies  anyhow  that 
could  arise  from  this  note  itself.  Indeed,  though  there  were 
dangers  and  contingencies  to  be  avoided  or  provided  for  be- 
fore Madge  would  be  safely  Home — Lady  Ellington  thought 
this  rather  neat — she  felt  herself  quite  competent  to  tackle 
with  them.  Madge  had  declared  she  would  take  no  step 
without  the  initiative  on  the  part  of  Evelyn,  and  after  the 
really  very  carefully  worded  note  which  he  would  receive 
this  morning,  it  was  not  easy  to  see  what  he  could  do.  Luck, 
of  course,  that  blind  goddess  who  upsets  all  our  plans  as  a 
mischievous  child  upsets  a  chess-board  on  which  the  most 
delicate  problem  is  in  course  of  solution,  might  bring  in  the 
unforeseen  to  wreck  everything,  but  Lady  Ellington's  expe- 
rience was  that  Luck  chiefly  interfered  with  careless  people 
who  did  not  lay  their  plans  well.  She  could  not  accuse  her- 
self of  belonging  to  that  class,  nor  in  fact  would  her  enemies, 
if,  as  was  highly  probable,  she  had  enemies,  have  done  so. 

It  was  therefore  in  a  state  of  reasonable  calm  and  absence 
of  apprehension  that  she  came  back  from  her  long  stroll  in 
the  forest  with  Madge  just  before  lunch.  She  had  had  a  really 
delightful  walk,  and  they  had  talked  over,  without  any  al- 
lusion to  the  subject  that  really  occupied  them  both,  the 
gospel  of  the  simple  life,  as  practised  by  Merivale.  Madge 
had  not  slept  well ;  indeed,  it  would  be  truer  to  say  she  had 
scarcely  slept  at  all,  and  her  face  bore  traces  of  the  weary 
hours  of  the  night.  But  she  too,  like  her  mother,  though  for 
different  reasons,  had  no  temptation  to  re-open  the  subject, 
simply  because  she  felt  she  could  not  stand  any  more  just 
then,  and  it  was  something  of  a  relief  to  devote  even  the 
superficial  activity  of  her  mind  to  other  topics.  Not  for  a 
moment  did  she  doubt  that  Evelyn  would  write  to  her  asking 
to  see  her ;  he  must  indeed  do  that  for  his  own  sake  no  less 


THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN  141 

than  hers,  and  though  the  waiting  was  hard  enough,  yet  at 
the  end  of  it  there  shone  so  bright  a  light  that  even  the  wait- 
ing had  a  sort  of  luminous  rapture  about  it.  So  comforting 
herself  thus,  she  responded  to  her  mother's  bright,  agile  talk, 
and  indeed  took  her  fair  share  of  conversation. 

The  answer  had  arrived  when  Lady  Ellington  reached 
home,  and  her  maid  gave  it  her  in  her  bedroom.  It  acknowl- 
edged the  receipt  of  her  note,  as  she  had  asked,  and  which 
indeed  was  all  she  had  asked.  She  should,  therefore,  have 
been  perfectly  satisfied.  Yet  she  was  not  quite;  she  did  not 
feel  as  secure  as  she  could  have  wished. 


TENTH 


^•••*^T  was  some  ten  days  after  the  events  of  the  thunder- 
storm, and  Evelyn,  who  had  returned  to  London  the 
B  day  after,  was  in  his  studio  working  at  the  portrait 
-^""^^^  of  Philip.  The  last  ten  days  had  passed  for  him  like 
an  evil  dream — a  dream,  too,  unfortunately  from  which  there 
was  no  prospect  whatever  of  waking.  Indeed,  as  the  dream 
went  on  it  seemed  to  gain  in  its  ghastly  vividness ;  every  day 
that  passed  repeated  the  effect  of  it,  and  stamped  its  reality 
deeper.  But  with  good  sense  that  did  him  credit,  instead 
of  brooding  desolately  over  his  lot,  or  driving  himself  half- 
mad  with  the  thought  of  Madge,  he  turned  with  a  sort  of 
demented  fury  to  his  work,  and  day  after  day  painted  till  he 
could  no  longer  see,  not  leaving  off  till  his  brain  was  dull  and 
almost  incapable  of  further  thought.  But  though  nervous, 
excitable  and  highly-strung,  he  was  luckily  also  very  strong, 
and  believed  that  he  was  capable,  at  any  rate,  of  going  on  at 
this  frightful  high  pressure  anyhow  till  the  marriage  had 
taken  place.  When  that  was  accomplished,  he  felt  that  the 
tension  of  the  suspense  would  be  lightened  ;  he  might  himself, 
it  is  true,  drop  like  a  stone  in  the  sea,  but  the  struggle  would 
then  be  over,  he  would  not  battle  any  longer  to  try  to  keep 
afloat.  In  the  inside  pocket  of  his  coat  he  kept  the  note  that 
he  had  received  from  Lady  Ellington;  it  was  soiled  and 
wilted  with  much  handling  and  re-reading,  and  simple  and 
straightforward  (from  a  literary  point  of  view)  as  it  was, 
he  had  tried  fifty  interpretations  on  each  of  those  very  intel- 
ligible sentences.  But  not  one  contained  a  grain  of  comfort 
for  him. 

But  though  the  whole  fibre  of  his  spiritual  being  was  in  so 
great  and  agonising  a  state  of  unrest,  he  found  that  his  eye 
and  his  hand  had  lost  not  one  particle  of  their  powers  of 
vision  and  execution.  Sometimes,  it  is  true,  it  was  rather 
hard  to  get  to  work ;  it  seemed  scarcely  worth  while  putting 
in  a  light  or  a  shadow,  but  when  once  he  had  begun  there 
142 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  143 

was  no  abatement  in  the  brilliance  of  his  skill,  and  though 
he  only  felt  a  vague,  far-away  satisfaction  in  what  he  was 
doing,  he  brought  all  his  keenness  of  observation,  all  his  dex- 
terity of  handling  to  his  work.  Again,  when  his  sitters  were 
there,  there  was  the  same  merciful  necessity  of  normal  be- 
haviour, and  probably  there  was  only  one  person  who  saw 
him  during  these  days  who  suspected  that  there  wac  anything 
wrong.  This  was  Philip.  But  of  what  was  wrong  he  had 
not  the  faintest  inkling. 

Philip  himself,  so  said  the  world  in  general,  had  become 
wonderfully  softened  since  his  engagement.  He  had  gained 
enormously  in  geniality,  a  quality  of  which  the  world  had  not 
considered  him  particularly  lavish  before,  and  he  did  not  in 
these  new  days  take  himself  quite  so  seriously  as  he  had 
been  tised  to.  Why  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  Madge  origi- 
nally nobody  quite  knew,  for  there  was  no  very  obvious  com- 
mon ground  between  them.  But  the  ways  of  love  are  past 
rinding  out,  and  even  as  when  two  tiny  carbon  poles  of  an 
electric  battery  are  brought  near  to  each  other  a  light  alto- 
gether disproportionate  to  their  size  illuminates  the  night,  so 
it  was  with  Philip.  And  certainly  now  the  miracle  was  eas- 
ier of  explanation ;  there  apparently  had  been  in  him  the 
germ  of  a  quite  different  Philip  to  that  which  he  showed  the 
world — a  Philip  admirably  kind  and  gentle,  the  very  man 
who  would  so  easily  fall  in  love  with  anyone  possessed  of 
half  Madge's  perfectly  obvious  attractions.  All  this  was 
said  in  general  talk,  but  in  whispers  it  had  begun  to  be  said 
that  Madge  was  not  so  desperately  in  love  with  him,  and 
for  this  Gladys  Ellington  was  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  di- 
rectly responsible,  though  no  doubt  she  would  have  been  if 
she  had  thought  she  would  not  be  found  out.  It  was  rather 
Madge's  own  manner  which  suggested  it.  She  too,  like 
Philip,  had  been  much  humanised,  coincidentally  anyhow, 
with  their  engagement ;  but  later,  during  these  last  ten  days 
in  fact,  she  really  seemed  to  have  hired  a  snail-shell  and 
curled  herself  up  in  it.  Her  trousseau — this  alone  was  im- 
material— did  not  seem  to  give  her  the  smallest  pleasure,  and 
yet  her  indifference  to  that  was  not  the  indifference  which 
might  have  been  the  'fruit  of  her  private  intense  happiness, 
which  could  conceivably  have  made  even  these  confections 
seem  tasteless.  In  fact,  it  was  not  only  the  trousseau  that 
she  appeared  to  find  tasteless;  she  found  everything  taste- 


144  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

less,  and  really,  to  judge  from  her  mode  of  behaviour  when 
she  was  with  Philip,  you  would  have  thought  that  she  was 
an  icicle  just  being  introduced  to  an  eligible  snowflake. 

Philip  on  this  particular  day  had  sat  for  Evelyn  for  nearly 
a  couple  of  hours,  grumbling  at  the  length  of  his  detention, 
but  in  a  manner  that  did  not  suggest  active  discontent.  He 
intended,  in  fact,  to  give  Madge  the  picture  on  their  wed- 
ding day,  if  it  could  be  finished,  and  to  further  that  desirable 
object  he  was  willing  really  to  sit  for  as  long  as  Evelyn  re- 
quired. The  latter,  various  and  numerous  as  were  the  moods 
to  which  he  usually  treated  his  sitters,  seemed  to-day  to 
have  gone  through  them  all ;  he  was,  in  fact,  more  like  him- 
self than  Philip  had  lately  seen  him. 

"  Until  one  really  looks  at  a  man's  face,"  he  had  been  say- 
ing, "  one  never  knows  how  ugly  he  is.  I  always  used  to 
think  you  passably  good-looking.  But  you  are  awful,  do  you 
know?  Men's  faces  generally  are  like  chests  of  drawers — 
square,  don't  you  know,  and  covered  with  knobs  that  sug- 
gest handles.  And  you  are  balder  than  when  I  began  to 
paint  you." 

"  I  am  sure  I  apologise.  And  do  you  really  think  you  can 
finish  it  by  the  twenty-eighth?  I  shall  be  immensely  grate- 
ful if  you  can." 

"  The  twenty-eighth  ?    Ah !  yes,  the  happy  day." 

Thereat  another  mood  came  over  him,  and  for  the  spate 
of  surprising  remarks  which  he  had  been  pouring  forth  there 
was  exchanged  a  frowning,  brush-biting  silence.  This  lasted 
another  twenty  minutes,  and  Philip,  as  thanks  for  his  offer- 
ings on  the  altar  of  conversation,  got  only  grunts,  and  once 
a  laboriously  polite  request  to  stand  still.  But  eventually  he 
hit  on  a  subject  that  produced  a  response. 

"  And  Madge's  portrait  ?"  he  said.  "  Have  you  decided  to 
yield  to  our  ignorance  perhaps,  but  anyhow  our  desire,  and 
consider  it  finished  ?" 

Evelyn  stopped  dead  in  the  middle  of  a  stroke,  and  a  new 
and  frightfully  disconcerting  mood  suddenly  appeared  to 
possess  him. 

"  How  can  you  ask  me  if  I  yield,"  he  said  hotly,  "  when 
you  have  told  me  I  can't  have  any  more  sittings  ?  I  yield  as 
a  man  yields  who  is  pinioned  and  hung.  I  only  yield  to 
force.  As  for  the  portrait,  it  is  there,  face  to  the  wall.  I 
will  not  send  it  to  you,  but  you  may  fetch  it  away  without 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  145 

opposition  on  my  part.  I  never  want  to  see  it  again.  Oh !  I 
make  one  condition — it  must  never  be  exhibited." 

"  Ah !  my  dear  fellow,"  said  Philip,  "  I  cannot  take  it  if 
you  feel  like  that  about  it." 

"  Leave  it  then." 

Philip  was  very  deeply  hurt  somehow  by  this.  Evelyn's 
absolute  insistence  on  his  taking  it  as  a  present  from  him  had 
much  touched  him,  though  he  had  tried  to  combat  it.  But 
this  ending  of  the  affair  was  intolerable.  He  could  not  leave 
matters  like  this.  And  now  while  he  was  debating  what  to 
do,  Evelyn  spoke  again,  resuming  his  painting  with  rapid, 
unerring  strokes. 

"  I  must  say  this,  too,"  he  said.  "  I  had  an  inspiration  for 
that  portrait  quite  unlike  any  I  have  ever  had  before.  It  is, 
even  as  it  stands,  my  masterpiece,  but  you — you  and  Miss 
Ellington  anyhow — have  prevented  me  from  completing 
what  is  my  best,  and  would  have  been  far  better.  Far  bet- 
ter? It  would  have  been  on  a  different  plane  altogether.  I 
am  sorry  if  this  hurts  you,  but  it  is  only  right  you  should 
know.  I  don't  say  it  is  your  fault ;  I  don't  say  it  is  anybody's 
fault.  But  there  the  picture  stands;  I  give  it  you  with  all 
the  completeness  with  which  I  originally  gave  it  you,  and 
with  all — all  the  best  wishes." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"  But  I  won't  send  it  you,"  he  said,  "  since  I  don't  think 
it  ought  to  be  sent.  Yet  take  it  with  my  love,  my  best  love, 
Philip.  And  I  should  be  obliged  if  you  would  say  no  more 
at  all  about  it.  Turn  your  face  a  bit  more  to  the  left,  there's 
a  good  fellow;  you  have  shifted  slightly." 

He  painted  on  for  some  little  time  in  silence,  and  Philip, 
complying  with  his  request  that  nothing  more  should  be  said 
about  it,  answered  his  next  question,  some  common  topic, 
and  himself  introduced  another.  But  all  the  time  his 
thoughts  were  busy  enough  on  the  tabooed  subject.  For  a 
second  time,  as  at  the  opera  a  few  nights  ago,  the  vague  sus- 
picion crossed  his  mind  that  Evelyn  was  in  love  with  Madge, 
and  had  somehow  betrayed  this  to  her ;  but  now,  as  then,  he 
formulated  this  thought  only  to  give  it  instant  dismissal. 
That  being  so,  he  was  morally  bound  to  do  Evelyn  justice, 
to  accept  without  either  comment  or  reservation  the  fact  that 
he  really  required  another  sitting  from  Madge,  and  to  do 
his  utmost,  whatever  her  unwillingness  and  whatever  the 


146  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

cause  of  it,  to  make  her  sit  to  him  again.  Both  the  Philip 
known  to  the  few  intimates  and  the  Philip  so  much  respected 
by  the  world  at  large  had  a  very  strong  sense  of  fairness,  and 
the  fair  thing  quite  certainly  was  this.  It  was  impossible  to 
deny  an  artist  another  sitting  if  he  felt  like  this  about  it;  it 
was  doubly  impossible  to  deny  it  to  a  friend.  Even  if  the  pic- 
ture had  been  an  order,  a  commission,  it  would  have  been  but 
shabby  treatment,  now  that  he  knew  how  Evelyn  felt  about 
it,  not  to  do  his  very  utmost  to  get  Madge  to  give  him  an- 
other sitting ;  but  the  picture  was  not  that,  it  was  a  present, 
given  too,  as  he  had  said,  "  with  his  love."  He  could  not 
really  doubt  that  when  it  was  put  to  Madge  like  this,  she 
would  see  it  as  he  himself  did. 

The  task  itself  of  talking  to  her  on  the  subject,  it  was  dis- 
tasteful to  him,  for  she  had  been  mysteriously  indeed,  but 
unmistakably  in  earnest,  about  it  a  few  nights  ago  at  the 
opera.  Whatever  the  cause  (and  he  consciously  turned  back 
from  even  conjecturing  at  the  cause),  she  had,  so  she 
thought,  at  any  rate,  an  adequate  reason  for  not  wishing  to 
continue  the  sittings,  even  when  the  artist's  point  of  view 
was  presented  to  her,  and  he  foresaw  that  he  might  find  him- 
self in  an  opposition  to  her  that  would  be  painful  to  both 
of  them.  Nor  had  the  change  in  her,  which  the  world  com- 
pared to  the  action  of  a  snail  retiring  into  its  shell,  escaped 
him.  She  had  been  for  the  last  ten  days  or  so  reserved, 
silent,  and  apt  to  be  startled.  More  than  once  he  had  asked 
her  if  anything  was  wrong,  and  the  vehemence  of  her  asser- 
tion that  nothing  was  wrong  had  rather  surprised  him.  But 
here,  again,  he  had  to  pull  himself  up,  and  studiously  refrain 
from  conjecturing  that  Evelyn  was  in  any  way  connected 
with  any  private  worry  of  hers.  Besides  she  had  said  that 
nothing  was  wrong ;  he  was  bound  to  accept  that.  For  this 
reason  he  rejected  the  notion  of  consulting  Lady  Ellington 
about  it ;  that  would  imply  a  distrust  of  the  girl  herself. 

He  was  going  to  see  her  as  soon  as  this  sitting  was  over, 
and  since  he  had  thoroughly  made  up  his  mind  that  he  must 
do  his  best  to  persuade  her  to  do  as  he  desired  about  the 
portrait,  he  determined  not  to  put  it  off, but  to  speak  to  her  to- 
day. But  he  judged  it  better  not  to  tell  Evelyn  what  he  was 
going  to  do,  because  on  the  one  hand  his  mission  might  fail 
of  success,  and  on  the  other  because  he  had  been  asked  to 
allude  no  further  to  the  question.  So  for  the  remainder  of 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  147 

the  sitting  they  talked,  neither  quite  naturally,  since  both 
were  thinking  of  the  one  subject  that  could  not  be  talked 
about,  on  strictly  public  topics.  But  every  minute  was  an 
age  of  discomfort,  and  Philip,  at  any  rate,  was  heartily  glad 
when  it  was  over,  and  he  was  out  again  in  the  hot,  sunny 
streets. 

Madge  scarcely  knew  how  the  days  had  passed  since  that 
afternoon  in  the  New  Forest,  for  it  seemed  to  her  that  all 
the  values  of  life  were  altered,  as  if  a  totally  new  scheme  of 
things  must  be  made,  for  that  which  existed  at  present  was 
not  possible.  Day  after  day,  too,  brought  the  twenty-eighth 
nearer — that  date  before  which  something  which  would  up- 
set and  reverse  her  whole  world  must  assuredly  occur.  For 
she  was  pledged  then  to  do  that  which  she  knew  she  could 
not  do,  the  impossibility  of  which  was  every  hour  more 
vividly  impressed  on  her.  She  had  herself  promised  her 
mother  to  do  nothing  whatever,  unless  Evelyn  made  some 
further  advance ;  what  she  did  not  know  was  how  very  skil- 
fully he  had  been  debarred  from  that.  But  already  the 
promise  she  had  herself  given  had  begun  to  lose  for  her  its 
moral  validity,  it  was  only  in  a  second-hand  sort  of  way  that 
she  considered  it  binding,  for  one  thing  only  she  felt  was 
really  binding  on  her,  and  that  the  impossibility  of  fulfilling 
her  pledge  to  Philip.  That  was  outside  her  power ;  by  what 
step  she  would  make  that  known,  she  did  not  yet  consider. 
A  way  must  be  found ;  what  the  way  was  seemed  to  her,  if 
she  considered  it  at  all,  very  immaterial. 

For  side  by  side  with  that  impossibility,  and  not  less  se- 
curely throned,  was  another  certainty,  namely,  that  Evelyn 
must  repeat  what  he  had  said  before ;  no  man  could  leave  it 
like  that.  And  in  those  days  she  knew  what  it  was  to  start 
and  change  colour  when  the  door-bell  rang,  to  frame  any 
excuse,  or  no  excuse,  to  go  downstairs  and  see  what  the  post 
had  brought,  to  watch  at  balls  and  parties  the  arrival  of 
fresh-comers,  and  glance  across  the  crowded  rooms  in  a  sort 
of  yearning  certainty  that  now  at  last  she  would  see  one  face 
among  the  crowd,  which  would  come  slowly  closer  and  closer 
through  the  throng,  until  it  was  by  her.  Then — even  the 
trivial,  commonplace  little  details  were  imagined  by  her — he 
would  ask  her  for  a  dance,  or  take  her  out  to  some  unfre- 
quented room.  Philip  at  the  time  would  probably  be  with 
her ;  he  would  certainly  smile  and  nod  at  Evelyn,  and  resign 


148  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

her  to  him  for  "  just  ten  minutes."  But  the  days  went  on, 
and  none  of  these  visions  were  realised ;  he  appeared  no  more 
at  houses  where  she  had  often  seen  him.  Often,  too,  people 
asked  her  about  the  progress  of  her  portrait,  and  to  these  she 
replied  that  it  was  finished.  Finished!  These  moments 
were  lit  with  a  certainty  and  a  sure  hope,  but  there  were 
others,  black  ones.  What  if  he  had  spoken  without  thought, 
excitedly,  carried  away  by  some  moment's  passion,  bitterly 
regretted  since?  Supposing  he  did  not  really  love  her,  sup- 
posing it  had  been  just  the  flame  and  the  blaze  of  a  moment. 

There  was  no  preparation  possible  for  the  crash  that  was 
inevitable.  No  gradual  estrangement  from  Philip,  ending 
in  a  quarrel,  was  to  be  thought  of ;  she  could  not  scheme  and 
soften  things;  the  granite  of  the  bouleversement  could  not 
be  kneaded  into  dough.  More  than  once  he  had  asked  her 
if  anything  was  the  matter,  and  on  the  last  occasion,  as  we 
have  seen,  she  had  denied  it  with  vehemence — the  vehemence 
of  one  who  is  sick  with  a  deadly,  devouring  sickness,  whose 
instinct,  feverish  and  irresistible,  is  to  hold  on  to  the  last, 
affirming  her  health.  But  her  own  vehemence  had  startled  not 
only  him,  but  herself,  and  she  had  vowed  to  show  more  self- 
control,  and  exhibit  that  self-control  in  its  most  difficult  dem- 
onstration— merely  that  of  appearing  quite  normal,  and  not 
exercising  or,  indeed,  needing  any  self-control  at  all.  More 
especially  was  this  difficult  when  she  was  alone  with  him — 
the  half-hinted  caress,  the  look  of  love  in  those  honest  eyes, 
had  to  be  somehow  telegraphed  back ;  some  resemblance 
that  would  pass  muster  as  a  response  had  to  be  sent  by  her. 
It  was  all  so  mean,  and  the  only  comfort,  and  that  cold,  was 
that  it  could  not  now  last  long.  For  the  one  supreme  im- 
possibility remained — she  could  not  be  at  his  side  on  the 
twenty-eighth.  Some  thing,  Fate  or  her  own  action  dictated 
by  it,  would  interfere  with  that,  but  about  it  she  felt  a  sort  of 
cold  irresponsibility.  Meantime,  since  responsibility  was  not 
as  yet  definitely  fallen  on  her,  the  need  for  normal  behaviour 
was  paramount. 

To-day  Philip  was  coming  to  tea ;  he  was  going  to  return 
to  dinner,  and  they,  with  her  mother,  were  going  to  the 
theatre.  After  that  there  was  a  dance ;  from  the  hours  be- 
tween five  and  the  small  hours  of  the  next  day  she  would 
scarcely  be  alone  a  moment.  And  it  was  in  loneliness  that 
she  could  best  bear  the  hopeless  tangle — that  tangle  which,  so 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  149 

it  seemed  to  her  now,  could  never  be  unravelled,  but  must  be 
cut  with  a  knife.    A  small  knot  more  or  less  no  longer  made 
any  difference,  and  it  was  with  apathy  almost,  certainly  with- 
out strong  feeling  of  any  kind,  that  she  heard  from  Lady 
Ellington  that  she  would  perhaps  be  late  for  tea,  and  in  con- 
sequence that  Philip  and  herself  would  be  alone  together. 
An  hour  or  two  more  of  make-believe  did  not  seem  to  her 
now  to  matter  much ;  the  hours  that  there  could  be  of  that 
were  definitely  limited,  and,  since  limited,  it  was  possible  to 
deal  with  them.    For  it  is  only  the  endless  succession  of  im- 
possible hours,  this  knowledge  that  they  will  continue  as 
long  as  life  itself,  that  brings  despair.    But  above  all,  till  the 
crash  came,  she  must  be  normal.    She  must  give  no  sign  of 
the  storm  that  was  raging  within  her,  and  though  the  depths 
and  lowest  abysses  of  her  nature  were  upheaved  by  wild 
billows  yet  somehow  the  surface  must  be  kept  calm.    It  was 
one  of  the  forces  outside  her  own  control  which  had  taken 
possession  of  her,  and  with  a  sort  of  shudder  she  thought  of 
the  duck-and-drake  discussions  she  had  held  with  Evelyn 
about  incontrollable   forces,  making  these  things   of  vital 
import  the  subject  for  a  jest  and  an  epigram.    But  she  knew 
now,  as  she  had  not  known  then,  what  such  a  force  meant. 
This  dismal  drawing-room,  with  its  frippery  hanging  over 
the  window  to  hide  it  from  the  gaze  of  the  square,  its  grand 
piano,  its  window  at  the  opposite  end,  which  commanded  a 
small  sooty  yard !    A  hundred  drawing-rooms  east  and  west 
of  it  were  exactly  like  it,  yet  on  this  had  Fate — that  cruel, 
velvet-pawed  cat — pounced,  selecting  it  at  random,  to  make 
it  the  scene  of  one  of  her  mean  little  dramas,  at  which  one 
cannot  laugh  for  fear  of  tears,  at  which  one  cannot  cry  be- 
cause other  people  laugh.    And  here  Madge  sat  alone,  Lady 
Ellington  not  having  yet  returned,  the  silver  urn  occasionally 
lifting  its  lid  with  the  infinitesimal  pressure  of  the  steam 
beneath,  with  all  the  mocking  accessories  of  comfortable  life 
round  her,  waiting  for  the  inevitable  explosion.    It  might  be 
to-day,  it  might  be  to-morrow,  it  might  be  any  day  up  to  the 
twenty-eighth.    But  by  that  time  it  must  have  come ;  yet  the 
same  carpet  would  be  trodden  on,  the  same  pictures  would 
cast  incurious  eyes  on  to  a  human  tragedy,  the  same  every- 
thing would  preserve  its  mute,  inanimate  composure.    That 
composure  she,  too,  had  now  to  rival ;  she  must  be  as  suitable 
as  the  sofa. 


150  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

Her  greeting  of  him,  anyhow,  was  good  enough. 

"  At  last !"  she  said.  "  Philip,  it  is  weeks  since  I  set  eyes 
on  you.  Where  have  you  been,  and  what  have  you  done 
with  yourself  all  this  time  ?  Now,  don't  say  it  has  only  been 
business.  I  don't  believe  you  do  any,  and  I  shall  send  a  de- 
tective to  get  on  your  track.  Ah !  you  wouldn't  like  that,  I 
can  see  it;  you  gave  what  novelists  call  an  involuntary 
shudder." 

Then  she  broke  down  a  little. 

"  Tea,  she  asked.    "  You  like  it  weak,  don't  you?" 

Philip  settled  himself  in  the  chair  she  had  indicated.  He, 
too,  like  Madge,  was  inclined  to  temporise,  though  his 
reasons  for  so  doing  were  different,  for  his  inevitable  errand 
was  unpleasant,  and  the  present  so  extremely  the  reverse. 
Her  temporisation  on  the  other  hand,  was  that  of  postponing 
the  inevitable  for  the  sake  of  the  impossible. 

"  Well,  it  is  good  anyhow  to  see  you  again,"  he  said. 
"  Yes,  business  chiefly  has  stood  in  my  way.  But  I  won't 
be  dishonest;  I  spent  nearly  two  hours  this  afternoon  over 
the  portrait." 

"  What  portrait  ?"  asked  Madge,  with  a  swiftness  that  she 
could  not  help.  But  she  would  gladly  have  recalled  it.  For 
the  present,  however,  it  appeared  that  Philip  did  not  notice 
her  vehemence. 

"  Mine,"  he  said  quietly.  "  I  am  sitting  to  Evelyn,  you 
know.  He  hopes  to  have  it  finished  by  the  twenty-eighth. 
You  shall  see  it  then,  but  not  till  then." 

"  Yes,  keep  it  for  then,"  she  said,  again  bracing  herself 
to  keep  up  some  sort  of  attitude  which  should  be  natural  in 
a  girl  to  a  man  she  was  shortly  going  to  marry.  "  It  must 
come  as  a  surprise  to  me,  Philip.  But  only  tell  me:  it  is 
good,  isn't  it  ?  I  shan't  be  disappointed  ?" 

Now,  this  portrait  of  himself  seemed  to  Philip  more 
magical  work  than  even  that  of  Madge.  He  knew  himself 
pretty  well,  but  this  afternoon,  when  he  was  allowed  to  see 
it,  he  felt  that  Evelyn  somehow  must  have  been  inside  him 
to  have  done  that.  Brilliant  as  Madge's  portrait  was  (the 
artist  himself  indeed  considering  it  quite  his  high-water 
mark),  it  was  yet  but  a  mood  of  "Madge  that  he  had  caught 
so  correctly  and  delineated  so  unerringly — that  mood  of 
reassuring  laughter  at  the  worries  and  the  sorrows  of  life. 
But  in  his  own  portrait  he  felt  that  he  himself  was  there. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  151 

"  No,  I  promise  you  that  you  will  not  be  disappointed," 
he  said,  "  though  I  daresay  it  will  make  you  jump.  It  isn't 
on  the  canvas  at  all,  it  seems  to  me ;  it  is  stepping  right  out 
of  it  And  there  is  there,"  he  added,  "  not  only  this  poor 
business  man,  but  the  man  who  loves  you.  He  has  put  that 
in.  My  goodness,  how  could  he  have  known  what  that  was 
like?" 

Madge  gave  a  sudden  little  start,  but  recovered  herself 
immediately.  She  could  not  meet  this  seriously ;  it  had  to  be 
laughed  off. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  what  it  is  like,"  she  said,  "  because 
with  all  my  faults,  I've  really  never  loved  myself.  I  never 
think  of  myself  except  as  rather  a  little  brute.  It's  better  to 
do  that  oneself,  isn't  it,  not  to  leave  it  to  others.  Not  that  it 
prevents  them  doing  it  also." 

Philip  had  possessed  himself  of  Madge's  left  hand,  the 
hand  that  he  never  ceased  to  wonder  at.  It  was  always  cool, 
never  hot,  never  cold,  and  the  skin  of  it  was  like  a  peach.  The 
fingers  were  long  and  tapered  to  almond-shaped  nails,  and  for 
all  its  slimness  and  delicacy  it  was  yet  a  strong  hand.  And 
mechanically  she  returned  the  touch  of  his,  which  half  un- 
consciously lingered  at  the  base  of  the  fourth  ringer  as  if 
showing  the  place  where  so  soon  the  plain  circlet  of  gold 
would  be. 

"  Ah !  it  is  always  a  pity  if  anybody  thinks  one  a  brute," 
he  said.  "  It  often  must  happen,  but  I  think  one  should  try 
to  make  such  occasions  rare,  so  long  as  one  does  not  have  to 
sacrifice  principle  to  them.  I  mean,  if  anyone  thinks  one  a 
brute,  and  one  can  convince  him  of  the  contrary,  it  is  usually 
worth  while." 

For  a  moment  it  flashed  through  Madge's  brain  what  was 
coming.  Considering  what  her  mind  was  full  of,  it  was  not 
surprising.  And  it  came. 

"  I  want  to  ask  a  favour  of  you,  dear,"  he  said.  "  I  call  it 
a  favour  because  it  is  a  real  favour — it  implies  your  doing 
something  that  I  know  you  don't  want  to  do.  It  also  will 
make  somebody  cease  to  think  you  a  brute,  and  instead  of 
sacrificing  a  principle  in  its  performance — you  will  satisfy 
one,  and  that  a  very  good  one,  the  principle  of  fairness." 

Madge  had  left  the  sofa  where  they  were  sitting  together 
during  this,  and  simply  in  order  to  be  doing  something 
instead  of  inertly  listening,  poured  herself  out  another  cup 


152  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

of  tea.    So  her  back  was  turned  to  Philip  when  she  replied : 

"  You  state  it  as  if  I  couldn't  help  saying  '  Yes/  "  she  said, 
her  voice  trembling  a  little.  "  What  is  it,  Philip  ?" 

"  Merely  this,  that  you  give  Evelyn  another  sitting,"  he 
said.  "  I  had  no  idea  how  strongly  and  keenly  he  felt  about 
it  till  this  afternoon.  Shall  I  tell  you  about  it  ?" 

"  Yes,  do." 

"  Well  won't  you  come  and  sit  here  again  ?" 

She  did  not  dare,  for  she  felt  too  uncertain  of  herself,  and 
as  she  poured  the  milk  into  her  tea,  her  hand  was  no  longer 
master  of  itself,  and  the  saucer  was  flooded. 

"  Ah !  what  a  mess,"  she  cried.    "  Go  on,  Philip." 

"  He  feels  that  you  are  treating  him  shabbily,"  he  said. 
"  Mind,  he  never  said  that ;  he  never  would.  But  it  was 
clear  to  me.  He  believes  that  his  portrait  of  you  is  the  best 
piece  of  work  he  is  ever  likely  to  do,  and  though  I  may  dis- 
agree with  him,  that  says  nothing  against  his  right  to  his 
opinion,  which  is  probably  correct.  Well,  he  wants  one 
more  sitting " 

"  Did  he  say  that  this  afternoon  ?" 

"  No,  but  he  did  before,  and  this  afternoon  he  told  me  I 
might  fetch  it  away  if  I  liked,  and  he  would  offer  no  opposi- 
tion, but  that  he  would  not  send  it.  I  can't  take  it  like  that ; 
neither  you  nor  I  can  take  it  if  that  is  his  feeling  about  it. 
It  isn't  as  if  I  paid  for  it;  it  is  a  present — a  most  generous, 
splendid  present.  So  will  you  be  very  kind,  Madge,  and 
though  he  bores  you,  just  go  back  once?  Indeed,  it  is  only 
fair  that  you  should.  After  all,  it  is  only  for  an  hour  or  so, 
and  really,  I  don't  believe  he  bores  you  much." 

Though  in  the  next  moment  Madge  thought  of  so  much, 
the  pause  was  not  long,  for  her  thoughts  flashed  lightning- 
wise  through  her  mind.  First  came  the  dramatic  wonder 
that  it  should  be  Philip — Philip  of  all  people  in  the  huge 
world,  who  should  be  asking  her  to  do  this.  If  it  had  been 
anybody  else  the  thing  would  not  have  been  so  astounding, 
but  it  was  he.  Then  came  the  thought  of  her  mother,  and 
the  promise  she  had  given  her.  Even  before  this  that  prom- 
ise, set  in  the  scales  with  larger  issues,  had  weighed  light ; 
now  it  just  kicked  the  beam.  But  then,  after  that,  and 
stronger  than  all  else,  came  the  sense  of  solution,  of  a  riddle 
answered.  How  often  had  she  puzzled  over  the  manner  in 
which  it  would  turn  out  that  the  twenty-eighth  should  be 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  153 

to  her  a  day  without  significance.  Here  was  the  answer, 
different  from  all  her  imaginings,  and  told  her  by  Philip 
himself.  And  of  imaginings  and  puzzlings  she  had  had 
enough,  and  she  did  not  put  her  brain  to  the  task  of  imagin- 
ing what  that  sitting  would  be  like,  how  he  would  speak, 
what  he  would  say.  Simply,  she  was  going  to  meet  him 
again.  And  her  voice  when  she  answered  was  perfectly 
calm,  without  vibration.  She  felt  indeed  now  so  certain  of 
herself  that  she  came  and  sat  by  Philip  again. 

"  Yes,  if  he  feels  it  like  that,"  she  said,  "  and  if  you  feel  it 
like  that,  I  will  do  as  you  wish.  As  you  say,  an  hour  or  two 
doesn't  matter  much.  I  will  write  to  him ;  it  had  better  be  as 
soon  as  possible — to-morrow  if  he  has  time.  I  have  rather 
an  empty  day  to-morrow." 

She  got  up  again. 

"  I  will  write  now,  I  think,"  she  said,  "  because  I  must  eat 
a  little,  just  a  little,  humble  pie,  and  as  I  have  no  relish  for 
that,  I  will  get  it  done  with  as  soon  as  possible.  Now,  what 
shall  I  say?  Let  me  think." 

Her  pen  travelled  with  remarkable  ease  over  the  paper; 
the  humble  pie,  it  appeared,  was  being  consumed  without 
much  difficulty.  Once  only  she  stopped  for  a  word,  then  the 
scream  of  the  quill  underlined  her  own  name. 

"  Will  this  do  ?"  she  asked,  and  read : 

Dear  Mr.  Dundas. — I  feel  that  I  have  no  right  whatever, 
since  you  wish  me  to  give  you  another  sitting,  to  refuse  it. 
This  has  been  pointed  out  to  me  quite  clearly  by  Philip,  who 
is  with  me  now,  and  I  see  that  it  is  not  fair  either  on  you  or 
the  portrait.  I  wonder  if  to-morrow  would  suit  you?  I 
could  come  any  time  between  three  and  six.  If  three  will  do, 
pray  do  not  trouble  to  answer,  and  I  will  assume  the  affir- 
mative. 

Philip's  habit  of  considering  business  letters  led  him  to 
pause. 

"  Yes,  that  is  amende  honorable"  he  said  at  length.  "  It 
will  do  excellently.  But  if  you  are  bored,  Madge,  why  not 
take  your  mother  with  you,  or  I  would  meet  you  there  ?" 

"  Oh,  no,  he  would  think  it  so  odd,"  she  said  lightly. 
"  You  see,  I  am  accustomed  to  go  alone.  And  he  has  told 
me  that  he  hates  other  people  in  the  studio  while  he  is  paint- 
ing." 


154  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

She  directed  the  note  and  rang  the  bell. 

"  There  is  one  thing  more,  Philip,"  she  said,  "  and  that  is 
that  I  don't  want  my  mother  to  know  I  am  going.  You  see, 
I  told  her,  too,  that  I  was  not  going  to  sit  again,  and  if  one 
goes  back  on  one's  word,  well,  the  fewer  people  who  know 
about  it  the  better.  Everyone  hates  a  changeable  person 
who  doesn't  know  her  own  mind." 

Philip  willingly  gave  his  assurance  on  this  point,  for 
though  it  seemed  to  him  rather  a  superfluous  refinement,  he 
was,  on  the  whole,  so  pleased  to  have  met  with  no  opposi- 
tion that  he  was  delighted  to  leave  the  matter  settled  without 
more  discussion.  Then,  since  it  was  already  time  for  him  to 
go  home  and  dress  for  the  early  dinner  before  the  theatre, 
he  got  up. 

"  Ah !  Madge,"  he  said,  lingering  a  moment.  "  You  don't 
know,  and  you  can't  guess,  how  divinely  happy  you  make 
me.  In  the  big  things  I  knew  it  was  so,  but  in  little  things 
it  is  so  also.  You  are  complete  all  through." 

This  struck  her  like  a  blow.  She  could  scarcely  look  at 
him,  it  was  even  harder  to  return  his  caress. 

"  Oh,  don't  think  too  well  of  me,"  she  said,  "  and — and  go 
now,  or  you  will  be  late." 

Then,  after  he  had  gone,  Madge  felt  tired  as  she  had  never 
felt  tired  before.  The  fact  that  the  tension  was  over  showed 
her  what  the  tension  had  been ;  she  had  struggled,  and  while 
she  struggled  the  need  for  effort  had  postponed  the  effect 
of  weariness  which  the  effort  produced.  She  could  go  on 
living  her  ordinary  life,  and  had  not  this  occurred  she  could 
still  have  gone  on,  but  it  was  only  now,  when  the  need  for 
going  on  was  over,  that  she  knew  how  utterly  weary  she 
was.  Yet  with  the  weariness  there  was  given  her  a  draught 
of  wine ;  it  would  no  longer  be  "  to-morrow  and  to-morrow 
and  to-morrow,"  but  to-morrow  only.  She  knew  as  surely 
as  she  knew  how  tired  she  was,  that  to-morrow  would  see 
her  with  him,  and  the  rest  she  was  content  to  leave;  no 
imagination  or  picturing  of  hers  was  necessary.  It  would 
be  as  it  would  be. 

After  Philip  had  left  her,  there  was  still  half  an  hour 
before  she  need  go  to  dress,  but  the  thought  that  her  solitude 
might  be  disturbed  here  by  anyone  who  called,  or  by  her 
mother,  who  would  be  returning  any  minute,  caused  her  to 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  155 

go  upstairs  to  her  own  room,  where,  till  the  advent  of  her 
maid  at  dressing-time,  she  would  be  alone. 

Thus  it  was  scarcely  a  minute  after  her  lover  had  gone 
that  she  went  upstairs.  As  she  mounted  the  steps  to  the 
storey  above,  she  heard  the  front-door  bell  ring,  congratu- 
lated herself  on  having  just  escaped,  and  went  more  softly, 
and  closed  the  door  of  her  bedroom  very  gently  behind  her. 

The  ring  at  the  bell  which  she  had  heard  was  her  mother 
returning.  The  footman  who  had  taken  Madge's  note,  who 
had  also  just  let  Philip  out,  let  her  in,  having  laid  down  the 
note  in  question  on  the  hall  table,  meaning  to  put  a  stamp  on 
it,  and  drop  it  into  the  letter-box.  Madge's  handwriting  was 
unmistakable ;  it  was  brilliantly  legible,  too,  and  the  address 
leaped  from  the  envelope. 

Now,  Lady  Ellington,  as  both  her  friends  and  her  possible 
enemies  would  have  at  once  admitted,  was  a  very  thorough 
woman.  She  did  not,  in  fact,  when  she  desired  or  designed 
anything,  neglect  any  opportunity  of  furthering  that  desire 
or  design,  or  on  the  other  hand,  neglect  to  remove  any  ob- 
stacle which  might  possibly  stand  in  the  way  of  its  realisa- 
tion. She  had  excellent  eyes,  too — eyes  not  only  of  good 
sight,  but  very  quick  to  observe.  Yet  even  a  short-sighted 
person  might  easily  have  involuntarily  read  the  address,  so 
extremely  legible  was  it.  And  Lady  Ellington,  with  her  ex- 
cellent sight,  read  it  almost  before  she  knew  she  had  read  it. 
The  footman  in  question  had  meantime  just  gone  out  to  de- 
liver her  order  to  the  chauffeur  for  the  motor  this  evening, 
and  before  he  had  got  back  again  into  the  hall,  Lady  Elling- 
ton was  half-way  upstairs  with  the  note  in  her  hand. 

William — the  footman — had  a  week  before  received  a 
month's  warning  on  the  general  grounds  of  carelessness  and 
inattention.  Whether  justified  or  not  before  they  were  justi- 
fied now,  for  on  re-entering  he  thought  no  more  at  all  about 
the  note  he  had  to  post,  but  stared  at  himself  in  a  looking- 
glass,  and  hoped  the  next  butler  might  be  more  agreeable 
to  a  sensitive  young  fellow,  than  the  one  he  at  present  served 
under.  He  was  a  student  of  the  drama,  and  smiled  to  him- 
self in  the  glass,  detecting  in  that  image  a  likeness  to  Mr. 
George  Alexander.  So  he  smiled  again.  And  as  befits  so 
vacant-minded  a  young  man,  he  vanishes  from  this  tale  after 
a  short  and  inglorious  career.  His  career  he  himself  re- 
garded in  a  different  fashion. 


156  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

Lady  Ellington  went  into  the  drawing-room  on  her  way 
upstairs.  Philip,  she  knew,  since  she  had  passed  him  fifty 
yards  from  the  house  had  gone,  and  Madge,  so  it  appeared, 
had  gone  too.  But  the  tea  was  still  there.  For  herself,  she 
had  already  had  tea,  but  she  took  the  trouble  to  rinse  out  a 
cup,  pour  a  little  boiling  water  into  it,  and  proceeded  to  lay 
the  note  face  upwards  over  it.  Thorough  in  every  way,  she 
took  the  precaution  of  sitting  close  to  the  table,  ready  at  any 
moment  to  snatch  the  note  away  and  be  discovered  sipping 
hot  water — a  practice  to  which  she  was  known  to  be  ad- 
dicted, and  to  which  she  attributed  much  of  her  superlative 
health  and  freedom  from  all  digestive  trouble.  How  well 
founded  that  belief  was  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that 
she  digested  without  qualms  of  any  kind  what  she  was  doing 
now.  The  good  purpose  that  lurked  behind  assimilated  ap- 
parently any  meanness.  In  fact,  the  good  purpose  was  of  the 
nature  of  the  strongest  acid ;  the  meanness  ceased  to  exist — 
it  was  absorbed,  utterly  eaten  away. 

She  was  in  no  hurry,  for  there  was  still  plenty  of  time 
'before  she  need  dress,  and  she  waited  till  the  flap  of  the  en- 
velope began  to  curl  back  of  its  own  accord  as  the  gum  that 
fastened  it  was  made  fluid  again  by  the  steam.  This  hap- 
pened very  soon,  because  it  was  not  yet  really  dry.  Then, 
taking  precaution  against  the  sheet  inside  being  touched  by 
it,  she  drew  it  out  and  read.  The  clear,  neat  handwriting — 
she  had  taken  great  pains  with  Madge's  early  tuition  in  this 
art — was  as  intelligible  as  print,  and  she  only  needed  to  read 
it  through  twice  before  she  placed  it  back  again  in  its  en- 
velope, pressed  the  flap  back,  and  left  it  to  cool  and  dry.  Yet 
during  this  very  short  process  her  own  ideas  were  also  cool 
and  dry,  and  the  reasoning  sound  and  effective.  So  she  put 
a  stamp  on  the  envelope,  and  went  downstairs  herself,  and 
dropped  it  into  the  letter-box. 

That  was  necessary,  since  in  her  note  Madge  had  stated 
that  she  would  be  at  the  studio  at  three  unless  she  heard  to 
the  contrary.  Therefore  there  was  no  object  to  be  gained  in 
merely  sequestrating  the  note,  since  Madge  proposed  to  go 
there  unless  stopped.  For  Lady  Ellington  knew  well  that  no 
plan,  however  well-founded,  could  be  quite  certain  of  suc- 
cess ;  uncertainty,  the  possibly  adverse  action  of  Fate  might 
work  against  it,  and  thus  to  let  this  note  go — of  which  she 
had  mastered  the  contents — was  to  provoke  an  accident  the 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  157 

less,  since,  on  her  present  scheme,  she  had  not  stopped  it. 
For  the  fewer  dubious  things  one  does  on  the  whole,  the 
less  is  the  risk.  It  is  the  unfortunate  accident  of  guilt  which 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  hangs  a  man.  So  though  she  had 
been  guilty — in  a  way — when  she  wrote  to  Evelyn,  implying 
Madge's  acquiescence  in  her  letter,  she  had  the  more  ex- 
cellent reason  now,  especially  since  she  had  completely  mas- 
tered the  contents  of  this  note,  in  not  taking  the  more  ques- 
tionable step  of  stopping  it.  For  she  knew  for  certain,  and 
at  the  moment  did  not  require  to  know  more,  the  immediate 
movements  of  the  enemy;  if  Madge  heard  nothing,  she 
would  go  to  the  studio  to-morrow  at  three.  But  no  one  under 
any  circumstances  could  prevent  her  mother  making  her  ap- 
pearance there  too. 

Again,  it  is  true,  some  sort  of  reply  might  come.  But  the 
fact  of  a  reply  coming  was  equivalent  to  Evelyn's  saying  that 
he  could  not  be  there  at  three  to-morrow,  which  rightly  she 
put  down  as  being  a  negligable  contingency.  And  in  this 
case  again,  if  Lady  Ellington  could  not  keep  watch  over 
Madge's  movements  during  the  next  ten  days  she  felt  she 
would  be  really  ashamed  of  herself.  And  as  she  had  never 
been  that  yet,  she  saw  no  reason  why  she  should  begin  now. 
She  was  probably  right — the  chances  were  immensely  at  this 
moment  in  favour  of  her  not  beginning  to  be  ashamed  of 
herself.  For  the  beginnings  of  shame  are  searchings  of  the 
heart;  Lady  Ellington  never  searched  her  heart,  she  only 
did  her  best. 

The  evening  passed  in  perfect  harmony ;  and  though  she 
had  a  good  deal  to  think  about,  she  could  yet  spare  time  to  be 
characteristically  critical  about  the  play.  That  was  easy, 
since  it  was  a  very  bad  one,  and  the  deeper  consolations  of 
her  brain  were  devoted  all  the  time  to  certain  contingencies. 
This  note  had  been  posted  by  half-past  seven;  it  would  be 
received  that  night.  Supposing  there  was  a  reply  to  it,  it 
was  almost  certain  that  the  answer  would  come  at  the  second 
morning  post,  the  one  that  rapped  towards  the  end  of  break- 
fast time.  If  so.  and  if  that  reply  was  received  by  Madge, 
she  had  merely,  in  the  most  natural  manner  possible,  to  sug- 
gest complete  occupations  for  the  day,  challenging  and  in- 
quiring into  any  other  engagement.  But  she  did  not  seri- 
ously expect  this — no  reply  was  the  almost  certain  rejoinder. 


158  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

In  this  case,  Lady  Ellington  would  be  quite  unoccupied  after 
lunch. 

The  ramifications  went  further.  Madge  had  consented  to 
give  Mr.  Dundas  another  sitting  after  she  had  declared  she 
would  not  take  the  next  step.  It  was  better,  therefore,  to 
meet  guile  with  guile,  and  not  suggest  a  suspicion  or  possi- 
bility of  it  till  the  last  moment.  She  would  go  out  to  lunch 
to-morrow  herself,  with  regrets  to  Madge,  leaving  her  free 
to  spend  the  afternoon  as  she  chose,  without  asking  ques- 
tions. She  herself,  however,  would  leave  lunch  early,  and 
manage  to  be  at  Mr.  Dundas's  by  three  o'clock,  five  minu- 
tes before  perhaps ;  it  was  always  well  to  be  on  the  safe  side. 

Lady  Ellington's  applause  at  the  end  of  the  second  act  was 
rather  absent-minded.  Her  thoroughness  made  her  examine 
her  own  position  a  little  more  closely,  and  there  was  one 
point  about  it  which  she  did  not  much  like,  namely,  the  fact 
that  she  had  written  to  Mr.  Dundas  from  Brockenhurst,  im- 
plying Madge's  concurrence  in  what  she  said.  It  would  be 
rather  awkward  if  any  hint  of  that  ever  reached  Madge ;  it 
really  would  be  difficult  to  explain.  Explanation,  in  fact, 
was  impossible,  since  there  was  none.  But  it  followed  from 
this,  as  a  corollary,  that  he  must  not  see  Madge  alone;  the 
chances  then  were  enormous  of  the  whole  thing  coming  out. 
Yet  how  again  would  she  be  able  to  explain  her  own  presence 
at  Evelyn's  house  in  the  King's  Road  at  three  o'clock  that 
afternoon?  It  was  childish  to  say  she  happened  to  be  pass- 
ing. Then  a  solution  occurred  to  her — one  which  was  ex- 
traordinarily simple, and  extremely  probable — Philip  had  told 
her  that  Madge  was  sitting  again.  So  probable,  indeed,  was 
this,  that  she  could,  almost  without  effort,  persuade  herself 
that  he  had  done  so. 

Lady  Ellington  was  happily  unconscious  at  this  moment 
what  an  extremely  tangled  web  she  was  weaving,  and  how 
impossible  it  was  for  her  to  disentangle  it,  for  not  having 
had  the  privilege  of  overhearing  Madge's  conversation  with 
Philip,  she  had,  by  no  fault  of  hers,  no  idea  that  he  was 
pledged  to  secrecy.  True,  he  had  not  actually  mentioned,  a 
thing  which  he  might  be  expected  to  have  done,  the  fact 
that  Madge  was  going  to  sit  again,  but  no  doubt  a  little  well- 
turned  conversation  might  make  him  do  so.  Madge,  at  the 
end  of  the  third  act,  was  talking  to  a  neighbour  in  the  stalls, 
and  she  herself  turned  to  Philip. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  159 

"  A  stupid  act,  rather,"  she  said.  "  Those  two  laid  their 
plans  so  badly." 

Then,  with  a  sudden  sense  of  the  inward  humour  of  her 
words : 

"  It  isn't  enough  to  open  people's  letters,"  she  said,  "  you 
must  hear  their  conversations  too.  I  should  really  have  made 
an  excellent  villain,  if  I  had  studied  villainy.  I  should  have 
hidden  behind  the  curtains,  and  under  the  tables,  and  list- 
ened at  key  holes,  for  the  private  conversations  of  other  peo- 
ple, and  carefully  looked  in  such  places,  and  hung  a  hand- 
kerchief over  the  key-hole  before  indulging  in  any  of  my 
own." 

Philip  laughed. 

"  Yes,  I  think  you  would  be  thorough  in  all  you  did,"  he 
said,  "  and  certainly,  whatever  your  line  was,  I  should  '  pick 
you  up'  first,  as  schoolboys  say,  to  be  on  my  side." 

"  Ah !  I  am  certainly  on  your  side,"  said  she.  "  Now, 
what  have  you  done  with  yourself  all  day?  I  like  to  hear 
always  exactly  what  people  have  done.  A  few  weeks  of  what 
people  have  done  gives  you  the  complete  key  to  their  char- 
acter." 

"  Is  that  why  you  ask  ?"  said  he. 

"  No,  because  I  know  your  character.  I  ask  merely  from 
interest  in  you." 

"  Well,  I  rode  before  breakfast,"  said  he,  "  and  got  down 
to  the  city  about  half-past  ten.  I  worked  till  half-past  two, 
dull  work  rather — but,  by-the-bye,  hold  on  to  your  East 
Rand  Mining,  I  think  they  are  going  better — then  I  ate  three 
sandwiches  and  a  piece  of  cake ;  then  I  sat  to  Evelyn  for  two 
hours,  then  I  went  round  to  see  Madge,  dressed,  dined,  and 
didn't  think  much  of  the  play." 

"  And  your  portrait  ?"  asked  Lady  Ellington.  "  Is  it 
good?" 

"  Ah !  all  he  does  is  good,"  said  Philip.  "  A  man  like  that 
cannot  do  a  bad  thing.  But  it  is  more  than  good.  It's  Mary 
Jane's  top-note." 

"  I  thought  Madge  was  his  top-note,"  said  Lady  Ellington. 

"  Well,  I  think  he  has  gone  a  semitone  higher,"  said  he. 
"  Of  course  I  am  the  worst  person  to  judge,  but  it  seems  to 
me  that  he  is  even  more  sure  in  this  than  he  was  in  her  por- 
trait. Haven't  you  seen  it?" 

Lady  Ellington  was  quite  quick  enough  to  catch  at  this. 


160  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

"  No,  but  I  should  so  much  like  to,"  she  said.  "  Do  you 
think  he  would  let  me  see  it?" 

"  I'm  sure  he  would." 

Philip  paused  a  moment. 

"  Send  him  a  note,  or  I  will,"  he  said.  "  I  shouldn't  go 
to-morrow,  if  I  were  you,  because  I  know  he  is  busy." 

"Ah!  what  a  pity,"  said  Lady  Ellington,  lowering  her 
voice  a  little.  "  I  have  nothing  to  do  to-morrow  afternoon." 

"  I  know  he  is  busy,"  repeated  Philip.    "  He  told  me  so." 

"  And  Madge's  portrait,"  she  said,  "  when  shall  we  see 
that  ?  It  is  quite  finished,  is  it  not  ?" 

Suddenly  the  preposterous  idea  occurred  to  Philip  that  he 
was  being  pumped.  No  doubt  it  was  only  Madge's  rather 
ridiculous  request  that  her  mother  should  not  know  that  she 
was  going  to  sit  again  that  suggested  it,  but  still  it  was  there. 
On  this  point  also  he  had  given  his  promise  to  her,  and  he 
went  warily  in  this  time  of  trouble. 

"  I  fancy  he  is  going  to  work  a  little  more  at  it,"  he  said, 
anxious  to  tell  the  truth  as  far  as  possible.  "  Indeed,  he  told 
me  so  to-day.  But  he  said  that  if  I  sent  for  it  in  a  couple  of 
days  it  would  be  ready  for  me  to  take." 

It  was  quite  clear,  therefore — indeed,  the  letter  that  had  so 
providentially  come  into  her  hands  told  her  that — that  Philip 
knew  that  Madge  was  going  to  sit  again  to-morrow.  The 
letter  anyhow  had  told  her  that  she  was  going  to  sit  again ; 
Philip's  suggestion  that  she  herself  should  not  go  to  see  his 
portrait  to-morrow  was  quite  sufficiently  confirmatory  of  the 
rest.  He  had  not  told  her,  it  is  true,  that  Madge  was  going 
to  do  this,  but  it  would  answer  her  purpose  well  enough. 
There  was  only  one  thing  more  to  ask. 

"  I  think  Madge  said  she  would  not  sit  for  him  again," 
she  observed. 

"  Yes,  I  know  she  did,"  said  he,  "  because  I  was  the  bearer 
of  that  message  from  her.  I  thought  it  was  a  mistake,  I  re- 
member, at  the  time." 

It  was  on  the  tip  of  Lady  Ellington's  tongue  to  say,  "  And 
have  told  her  so  since,"  but  she  remembered  how  terribly  this 
would  fall  below  her  usually  felicitous  level  of  scheming. 
So,  as  the  curtain  went  up  at  this  moment,  she  turned  her 
attention  to  the  stage.  Had  it  not  gone  up,  she  would  have 
diverted  the  talk  into  other  channels ;  the  raising  of  the  cur- 
tain was  not  a  deliverance  to  her. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  161 

"  Let  us  see  what  these  second-rate  schemers  make  of  it 
all,"  she  said. 

The  act  was  played  to  a  tragic  end,  and  Philip  helped  her 
on  with  her  cloak. 

"  No,  they  committed  an  initial  fault,"  she  said ;  "  they 
didn't  lay  their  original  schemes  well  enough." 

But  though  the  play  was  a  disappointment,  she  pondered 
over  it  all  the  way  home. 


ELEVENTH 


'ADGE  lunched  alone  next  day,  a  thing  that  seldom 
happened  to  her  and  a  thing  that  was  always  in  a 
childish  way  rather  a  "  treat."  For  in  order  to 
counteract  the  natural  tendency  of  mankind  to  gob- 
ble over  the  solitary  meal,  or  else  to  eat  nothing  at  all,  it  was 
her  custom  to  bring  some  book  down  with  her,  prop  it  up 
against  the  mustard-pot,  and  intend,  anyhow,  to  read  slowly 
and  to  eat  slowly.  These  sensible  results  seldom  happened, 
since,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  result  was  that  she  read  two 
pages  of  her  book,  and  then  took  a  dozen  rapid  mouthfuls. 
And  to-day  not  even  that  result  was  attained,  for  she  read 
nothing,  not  even  opening  the  book  she  had  brought  down 
with  her,  and  ate  hardly  more.  For  in  spite  of  all  that  lay 
before  her,  the  rupture  with  Philip,  his  inevitable  pain  and 
sorrow,  his  natural  and  justified  indignation  and  contempt 
of  her,  all  of  which  were  scarcely  faceable  if  she  faced  them 
only,  in  spite,  too,  of  all  that  her  mother  would  feel  and  no 
doubt  say,  in  spite  of  the  fear  she  felt  in  the  face  of  that,  in 
spite  of  all  that  the  world  in  general  would  say,  she  was  too 
happy  to  read,  and  too  happy  to  eat.  For  the  birthday  of 
her  life,  she  knew,  had  come:  this  afternoon,  in  an  hour  or 
two,  she  would  be  face  to  face  with  the  man  who  loved  her, 
the  man  she  loved,  and  in  front  of  that  tremendous  fact,  the 
fact  that  swallowed  up  the  rest  of  the  world  in  a  gulp,  nothing 
else  could  really  count  for  anything.  Everything  else  was 
like  minute  type  of  some  kind,  while  in  the  middle  was  just 
the  one  sentence,  in  huge,  glowing  capitals. 

Everything  had  fallen  out  so  conveniently,  too :  Lady  El- 
lington had  told  her  at  breakfast  that  she  was  going  to  be 
out  for  lunch,  and  engaged  after  lunch,  and  she  did  not  in- 
quire into  Madge's  plans  at  all.  She  had  received  no  reply 
to  her  note  to  Evelyn,  and  the  very  fact  that  there  was  none 
seemed  to  bring  her  into  more  intimate  relations  with  him. 
Then  after  lunch  she  had  to  change  to  her  white  evening 
162 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  163 

dress,  over  which  she  put  a  long  dark  cloak,  her  maid  ar- 
ranged her  hair,  for  it  was  best  to  go  complete,  and  she  took 
with  her,  in  case  of  need,  the  scarlet  opera  cloak.  And  all 
this  preparation  was  so  much  joy  to  her,  she  felt  in  her  very 
bones  that  it  was  while  he  was  looking  at  her  dressed  thus 
that  he  first  knew  he  loved  her,  and  thus  dressed  she  would 
come  back  to  him  to-day.  Above  all,  the  long  riddle  of  these 
days  was  solved  now ;  here  was  the  answer,  she  was  the 
answer. 

Yet  though  all  her  heart  leaped  forward,  it  did  not  ac- 
celerate her  actual  movements ;  the  four-wheeler  also  was 
rather  slow,  and  it  was  some  ten  minutes  after  three  when 
she  arrived  at  the  door  of  the  studio  in  the  King's  Road. 
Just  beyond  it  was  drawn  up  a  motor-car,  beside  which  stood 
a  footman.  As  she  stepped  out  of  her  cab,  he  went  to  the 
door  of  the  motor  and  opened  it.  And  within  a  yard  or  two 
of  her  stood  her  mother. 

Instantly  all  the  passion  and  love  in  Madge's  heart  was 
transformed  into  mere  resolve,  for  she  knew  that  a  struggle, 
the  matching  of  her  will  against  her  mother's  lay  in  front  of 
her.  But  all  the  strength  of  her  love  was  there ;  it  lost  noth- 
ing of  that.  Lady  Ellington  had  crossed  the  pavement  more 
quickly  than  she,  and  stood  in  front  of  the  door. 

"  Where  are  you  going  to,  Madge  ?"  she  asked. 

Madge  turned  not  to  her  but  to  the  footman,  holding  out 
a  florin. 

"  Pay  my  cab,  please,"  she  said. 

Then  she  turned  to  her  mother. 

"  I  have  made  an  appointment  to  sit  to  Mr.  Dundas  this 
afternoon,"  she  said.  "  It  is  absurd  for  you  to  tell  me  that 
you  didn't  know  that.  But  I  ask  you  how  you  knew  ?" 

"  Philip  told  me,"  said  Lady  Ellington. 

"  Philip !"  cried  Madge.  Then  she  controlled  that  sudden 
ebullition,  for  every  fibre  within  her  knew  that  her  incre- 
dulity, which  only  half-believed  this,  had  done  him  wrong. 

So,  calming  herself,  she  spoke  again. 

"  I  don't  believe  that,"  she  said. 

That  was  the  declaration  of  war ;  quiet,  tranquil,  but  final. 
The  point  between  the  two  was  vital,  it  reached  downwards 
into  the  depths  of  individuality  where  compromise  cannot 
live,  being  unable  to  breathe  in  so  compressed  an  atmos- 
phere. And  Lady  Ellington  knew  that  as  well  as  Madge; 


164  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

there  was  war.  She  and  her  daughter  stood  in  unreconcilea- 
ble  camps,  diplomacy  was  dumb,  the  clash  of  arms  could 
alone  break  the  silence.  She  pointed  to  the  motor-car,  for 
the  modernity  of  setting  was  inevitable,  even  though  pri- 
meval passions  were  pitted  against  each  other. 

"  It  does  not  make  the  slightest  difference  whether  you  be- 
lieve it  or  not,"  she  said  quietly.  "  Get  into  the  motor,  as 
you  have  sent  your  cab  away." 

Madge  seemed  hardly  to  hear  this. 

"  Philip  never  told  you,"  she  repeated,  "  because  he  prom- 
ised me  he  would  not." 

Lady  Ellington  judged  that  it  would  be  mere  waste  of 
energy  or  ammunition  to  contest  this,  for  it  was  now  imma- 
terial to  her  campaign.  She  realised  also  that  she  needed  all 
the  energy  and  ammunition  that  she  possessed  to  enable  her 
to  carry  out  her  main  movement.  She  knew,  too,  that  Madge 
had  long  been  accustomed  to  obey  her  mere  voice;  the  in- 
stinct of  obedience  to  that  was  deeply  rooted.  But  how 
wholly  it  was  uprooted  now  she  did  not  yet  guess. 

"  Get  into  the  motor,  Madge,"  she  said.  "  Are  we  to  wait 
all  day  here  ?" 

Then  Madge  came  a  step  nearer. 

"  Yes,  that  used  to  frighten  me,"  she  said,  "  but  now  it 
does  not.  And  Philip  never  told  you  what  you  said  he  did. 
Who  was  it,  then  ?  Nobody  else  knew." 

Again  she  took  one  more  step  closer. 

"  Mother,  have  you  been  tampering  with  my  letters  ?"  she 
asked.  "  For  how  could  you  have  known  otherwise  ?  It  is 
ridiculous  to  say  that  Philip  told  you.  What  else  have  you 
done,  I  wonder?  Now,  stand  away,  please,  and  let  me  ring 
the  bell.  Or  do  you  propose  that  you  and  I,  you  and  I, 
should  fight  like  fishwives  on  the  pavement?" 

The  old  instinctive  right  of  fighting  for  one's  own,  ob- 
scured by  centuries  of  what  is  called  civilisation,  obscured, 
too,  in  Madge's  own  instance  by  years  of  obedience,  broke 
out  here.  She  was  herself,  and  nobody  else  was  she.  It  did 
not  matter  one  penny-worth  who  stood  between  her  and  the 
bell;  if  all  the  apostles  and  prophets  had  stood  there  she 
would  have  fought  them  all.  And  Lady  Ellington  knew  that 
this  particular  engagement  was  lost ;  the  bell  would  be  rung. 
But  her  plan  was  not  defeated  yet,  so  far  as  she  knew.  What 
she  did  not  know  was  that  mere  scheming,  mere  brain- 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  165 

wrought  work  on  her  part,  had  no  chance  at  all  against  its 
adversary.  No  clever  person  can  understand  that  until  it  is 
enacted  under  his  eyes,  and  the  cleverer  he  is,  the  less  he  will 
conceive  it  possible  that  his  spider-weavings  can  fail  to  hold 
their  fly.  But  when  passion  comes  along,  it  is  a  bumble-bee 
that  blunders  through  them  all,  without  knowing  that  there 
has  been  any  opposition. 

"  I  certainly  do  not  resemble  a  fishwife,"  she  said,  "  nor 
have  I  any  intention  of  acting  as  one.  There  is  the  bell — 
ring  it." 

Madge  looked  at  her  for  a  moment  in  wide-eyed  astonish- 
ment, feeling  sure  that  by  some  trick — anyhow,  something 
underhand — her  mother  had  got  her  knowledge. 

"  And  for  my  mother  to  do  that !"  she  said. 

Lady  Ellington  may  or  may  not  have  felt  the  depth  of  the 
well  from  which  this  sprang.  In  any  case  it  was  beside  her 
purpose  to  waste  a  volley  on  what  was  merely  rhetorical. 
And  the  faint  tinkle  of  the  electric  bell  was  the  only  response. 

A  maid-servant  opened  the  door. 

"  Miss  Ellington,"  said  Madge,  and  passed  in.  But  the 
door  was  not  so  open  to  the  other. 

"  Mr.  Dundas  said  he  was  at  home  only  to  Miss  Ellington, 
ma'am,"  said  she. 

"Then  kindly  tell  Mr.  Dundas  that  Lady  Ellington  has 
come  with  her,"  said  she. 

The  fight  was  in  grim  earnest  now.  Both  Madge  and  her 
mother  were  disposed  to  fight  every  yard  of  ground.  But 
the  former  had  some  remnant  of  duty,  of  compassion  left. 
Horrible  to  her  as  had  been  the  scene  on  the  doorstep,  con- 
vincing as  it  had  been  to  her  of  some  breach  of  faith,  of 
honour,  on  her  mother's  part,  she  did  not  want  to  expose 
that. 

"  Ah !  is  it  wise  of  you  ?"  she  said.  "  Had  you  not  better 
go  home?  You  can  do  no  good  mother." 

"  We  will  go  upstairs,"  said  Lady  Ellington. 

The  studio  was  at  the  top  of  the  house,  and  two  landings 
had  to  be  passed  and  three  staircases  surmounted  before  it 
was  reached.  On  the  second  of  these  Madge  had  fallen  back 
behind  her  mother,  throwing  the  dark  cloak  which  she  wore 
on  to  a  chair.  The  scarlet  opera  cloak  she  had  on  her  arm. 
The  maid  had  preceded  them  both,  and  threw  the  door  of  the 
studio  open  without  announcement  of  names.  Lady  Elling- 


166  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

ton  entered  first,  a  moment  afterwards  came  Madge,  dressed 
as  for  the  portrait,  with  the  cloak  over  her  arm. 

Now  Evelyn  had  been  through  an  emotional  crisis  not  less 
vital  than  that  of  Madge.  Indeed,  the  changes  that  had 
passed  for  him  since  he  had  received  her  note  were  wider 
than  was  anything  that  had  come  to  her.  She  had  passed 
only  from  the  uncertainty  as  to  the  manner  in  which  he  and 
she  would  come  face  to  face  again;  while  he  had  passed 
from  the  certainty  that  all  was  over  to  the  certainty  that  all 
was  yet  to  come.  Yet  when  the  door  opened  and  Lady  El- 
lington appeared,  he  felt  as  if  death  on  the  white  horse  was 
there.  But  a  moment  afterwards,  before  he  had  even  time  to 
greet  her,  came  life  with  the  eyes  he  loved  and  the  face  and 
form  that  he  loved.  And  he  stood  there  silent  a  moment, 
looking  from  one  to  the  other. 

"  I  learned  that  my  daughter  was  going  to  sit  to  you  again, 
Mr.  Dundas,"  said  Lady  Ellington,  "  and  I  came  with  her, 
met  her  here  rather,  in  order  to  forbid  it.  After  what  you 
said  to  her  on  that  day  down  in  the  New  Forest,  it  is  not 
conceivable  that  she  should  sit  to  you  again.  You  must  have 
known  that.  Yet  you  allowed  her  to  come  here,  alone,  for 
all  you  knew.  I  only  ask  you  if  you  think  that  is  the  act  of  a 
gentleman  ?" 

Evelyn  flushed. 

"  When  Miss  Ellington  proposed  it,  how  could  I  refuse  ?" 
he  said  quickly.  "  She  had  decided  to  trust  me,  and  from 
the  bottom  of  my  heart  I  thanked  her  for  it,  and  I  should  not 
have  been  unworthy  of  her  trust.  Ever  since  you  wrote  to 
me  from  Brockenhurst " 

Madge  turned  to  him. 

"  My  mother  wrote  to  you  from  Brockenhurst  ?"  she 
asked. 

''  Yes ;  surely  you  knew — you  must  have  known !"  he  said. 

"  I  had  not  the  smallest  idea  of  it  till  this  minute.  What 
did  she  say  ?" 

Lady  Ellington  lost  her  head  a  little. 

''  The  letter  I  wrote  you  was  private,"  she  said ;  "  it  was 
meant  only  for  your  eye." 

"  It  concerns  me,"  said  Madge,  tapping  the  table  with  a 
nervous,  unconscious  gesture.  "  I  must  know." 

Evelyn  and  she  looked  at  each  other,  and  it  was  as  if  each 
caught  some  light  from  the  other's  eyes. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  167 

"Yes,  that  is  true,"  said  he.  "Lady  Ellington  forbade 
me  to  write  or  attempt  an  interview  with  you,  and  I  gathered 
that  you  acquiesced  in  this.  I  gathered,  as  was  natural,  that 
you  were  deeply  offended " 

He  stopped,  for  the  light  that  shone  in  Madge's  face  was 
that  which  was  never  yet  on  sea  or  land,  but  only  on  the  face 
of  a  woman.  And  Lady  Ellington's  presence  at  that  moment 
was  to  them  less  than  the  fly  that  buzzed  in  the  window- 
pane,  or  the  swallows  that  swooped  and  circled  outside  in 
this  world  of  blue  and  summer.  The  secret  that  was  break- 
ing out  was  to  them  a  barrier  impenetrable,  that  cut  off  the 
whole  world,  a  ring  of  fire  through  which  none  might  pass. 
Dimly  came  the  sounds  of  the  outer  world  to  them  there 
that  which  his  eyes  were  learning,  that  which  her  eyes  were 
teaching,  absorbed  them  almost  to  the  exclusion  of  every- 
thing else.  Lady  Ellington,  perhaps,  had  some  inkling  of 
that ;  but  she  did  not  yet  know  how  utterly  she  had  lost,  and 
she  manned,  so  to  speak,  her  second  line  of  defence.  The 
first  had  been  lost ;  she  was  quick  enough  to  see  that  at  once. 

"  So  since  Madge  was  going  to  give  you  this  sitting,"  she 
said,  "  it  was  only  reasonable  that  I  should  accompany  her, 
to  prevent — to  prevent,"  she  repeated,  with  biting  emphasis. 
"  a  recurrence  of  what  happened  when  you,  Mr.  Dundas, 
last  found  yourself  alone  with  my  daughter." 

Then  Madge  lifted  her  head  a  little  and  smiled,  but  she 
still  looked  at  Evelyn. 

"  Ask  how  she  knew,"  she  said,  "  that  I  was  going  to  sit 
to  you.  No,  it  does  not  matter.  I  am  ready,  Mr.  Dundas, 
if  you  are." 

She  turned  and  mounted  the  platform  where  she  had 
stood  before. 

"  The  cloak,  shall  I  put  that  on  ?"  she  asked.  "  It  is  by 
you  there." 

Lady  Ellington  was  at  length  beginning  to  feel  and  realise 
the  sense  of  her  own  powerlessness ;  they  did  not  either  of 
them  seem  to  attend  to  her  remarks,  which  she  still  felt  were 
extremely  to  the  point. 

"  You  have  not  done  me  the  favour  to  answer  me,  Mr. 
Dundas,"  she  said. 

Evelyn  was  already  moving  the  easel  into  position,  and 
he  just  raised  his  eyebrows  as  if  some  preposterous  riddle 
had  been  asked  him. 


168  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  No,  I  have  no  answer,"  he  said.  "  It  all  seems  to  me 
very  just  You  came  here  to  prevent  a  repetition  of — of 
what  occurred  when  I  was  last  alone  with  Miss  Ellington. 
Was  not  that  it?" 

Then  suddenly  Madge  laughed;  her  head  a  little  back, 
her  eyes  half-closed,  and  Evelyn,  looking  at  her,  gave  a 
great  triumphant  explosion  of  sound. 

"  That  is  it — that  is  what  I  have  been  trying  for !"  he 
cried.  "  I  never  quite  got  it.  But  now  I  can." 

He  had  been  painting  before  they  came  in,  and  he  picked 
up  the  palette  and  dashed  to  the  canvas. 

"  Hold  that  if  you  can  for  half  a  minute !"  he  cried.  "  I 
don't  ask  for  more.  Look  at  me;  your  eyes  have  to  be  on 
me.  Ah,  it  is  a  miracle!" 

He  looked  once  and  painted ;  he  looked  and  painted  again. 
Then  for  the  third  time  he  looked,  and  looked  long,  but  he 
painted  no  more. 

"  I  have  done  it,"  he  said. 

There  was  a  long  pause;  he  put  his  palette  down  again, 
and  looked  at  Madge,  as  she  stood  there. 

"  Thank  you,"  he  said.    "  That  will  do." 

Then  Lady  Ellington  spoke. 

"  It  was  hardly  worth  my  daughter's  while  to  come  here 
for  half  a  minute,"  she  remarked,  "  or  mine  either." 

Evelyn  turned  to  her ;  he  was  conscious  of  even  a  sort  of 
pity  for  her. 

"  It  was  not  worth  your  while,"  he  said,  "  because  your 
presence  here  makes  no  difference.  When  I  said  your 
daughter  might  have  trusted  me  and  come  here  alone,  I 
did  not  know  what  I  know  now.  I  love  her.  Madge,  do 
you  hear?" 

She  gave  one  long  sigh,  and  the  scarlet  cloak  fell  to  the 
ground.  But  she  did  not  move. 

"  Oh !  Evelyn,"  she  said. 

Lady  Ellington  rustled  in  her  chair,  as  she  might  have 
rustled  at  a  situation  in  a  play  that  interested  her.  She 
knew  what  had  happened,  but  she  had  not  yet  fully  realised 
it.  But  her  cool,  quick  brain  very  soon  grasped  it  all,  and 
began  forging  ahead  again.  There  were  a  hundred  obstacles 
she  could  yet  throw  in  the  way  of  this  calm,  advancing  force. 

"  And  which  of  you  proposes  to  tell  Philip  ?"  she  said. 

The  effect  of  this  was  admirable  from  her  point  of  view. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  169 

It  brought  both  of  the  others  back  to  earth  again.  Evelyn 
winced  as  if  he  had  been  struck,  and  Madge  came  quickly 
off  the  platform. 

"Philip?"  she  cried.  "Ah,  what  have  we  done?  What 
have  we  said?  Philip  must  never  know.  We  must  never 
tell  him.  Ah,  but  next  week !" 

The  one  thought  that  for  this  last  ten  minutes  had  pos- 
sessed her,  had  possessed  her  to  the  exclusion  of  everything 
else.  There  had  been  no  Philip,  no  world,  no  anything 
except  the  one  inevitable  fact.  But  Lady  Ellington's  well- 
timed  and  perfectly  justifiable  observation  made  everything 
else,  all  the  sorrows  and  the  bitternesses  that  must  come, 
reel  into  sight  again.  But  she  turned  not  to  her  mother, 
but  to  Evelyn. 

"  Oh,  poor  Philip !"  she  cried.  "  He  has  always  been  so 

good,  so  content.  And  Mrs.  Home Evelyn,  what  is 

to  be  done?" 

She  laid  her  hand  in  appeal  on  his  shoulder;  he  took  it 
and  kissed  it. 

"  Leave  it  all  to  me,"  he  said.    "  I  will  see  that  he  knows." 

"  And  you  will  tell  him  I  am  sorry  ?"  she  said.  "  You 
will  make  him  understand  how  sorry  I  am,  but  that  I  could 
not  help  it?" 

"  Ah,  my  darling !"  he  cried,  and  kissed  her. 


Now,  Lady  Ellington  had  seldom  in  all  her  busy  and 
fully-occupied  life  felt  helpless,  but  she  felt  helpless  now, 
and  two  young  folk,  without  a  plan  in  their  heads  while  she 
was  bursting  with  excellent  plans,  had  brought  this  paralysis 
on  her.  She  also  had  very  seldom  felt  angry,  but  now  it 
would  not  be  too  much  to  say  that  she  felt  furious,  and  her 
sense  of  impotence  added  to  her  fury.  She  got  out  of  her 
chair  and  took  Madge  by  the  shoulder. 

"  You  ought  to  be  whipped,  Madge !"  she  cried. 

The  girl  held  out  her  hand  to  her. 

"  Ah,  poor  mother !"  she  said.  "  I  had  forgotten  about 
you,  because  I  was  so  happy  myself.  I  am  sorry  for  you, 
too.  It  is  awful !  But  what  am  I  to  do  ?" 

"  You  are  to  come  home  with  me  now,"  she  said. 

But  Madge  no  longer  looked  to  her  for  her  orders.  It  was 
for  this  cause,  after  all,  that  a  woman  also  should  leave 


170  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

her  father  and  mother,  and  her  allegiance  was  already  else- 
where. 

"  No ;  you  had  better  wait  a  little,"  said  Evelyn,  as  her 
glance  appealed  to  him.  "  There  are  things  we  must  talk 
about  at  once,  things  that  you  and  I  must  settle." 

Madge  took  this ;  this  came  from  the  authentic  source. 

"  I  am  not  coming  home  yet,"  she  said  to  her  mother. 

Then  Lady  Ellington  used  unnecessary  violence ;  the  door 
banged  behind  her.  But  again  her  quick,  cool  brain  was 
right  in  deciding  not  to  stop,  to  wrangle,  to  expostulate, 
though  a  woman  more  stupid  than  she  might  have  done 
so.  Had  she  been  less  wise,  she  would  have  made  a  scene, 
have  talked  about  the  Fifth  Commandment,  have  practicallv 
forced  Madge,  as  she  could  no  doubt  have  done,  to  come 
with  her.  But  she  was  clever  enough  to  see  that  there  was 
no  use  in  that.  The  fat  was  in  the  fire,  so  why  pretend  it 
was  not?  She  could  no  doubt  delay  the  actual  frizzling 
for  an  hour  or  a  day,  but  where  was  the  use?  If  anything 
could  still  be  done,  the  scene  of  the  operations  was  not  here. 
But  she  did  not  believe  that  it  was  all  up  yet,  though  here 
a  stupider  woman  might,  perhaps,  have  arrived  at  more 
correct*  conclusions.  She  still  clung  to  her  plotting,  her 
planning,  as  if  plans  ever  made  even  steerage-way  against 
passion.  And  even  for  this  forlorn  hope  she  had  to  think, 
and  think  hard,  whereas,  those  she  had  left  behind  her  in 
the  studio  did  not  have  to  think  at  all.  But  her  destination, 
anyhow,  was  clear  enough;  she  had  to  go  to  see  Philip. 
What  exactly  she  should  say  to  him  was  another  question ; 
that  had  to  be  thought  out  while  the  motor  pursued  its 
noiseless,  shifting  way  through  the  traffic,  steering,  as  a 
fish  steers  upstream,  avoiding  obstacles  by  a  mere  turn  of 
the  fin,  imperceptible  to  the  eye  as  was  the  movement  of 
the  steerage-wheel. 

But  as  she  went,  she  thought  heavily.  Her  whole  plans 
up  till  now  had  broken  down  completely.  A  very  short 
survey  of  the  last  hour  or  two  was  sufficient  to  convince  her 
of  that,  and,  once  convinced,  it  was  contrary  to  her  whole 
nature  to  waste  a  further  ounce  of  thought  on  them.  The 
flaws  there  had  been  in  them  she  momentarily  deplored ; 
they  might  obviously  have  been  better,  else  they  would 
not  have  failed,  but  to  deposit  even  a  regret  over  them  was 
mere  misuse  of  time.  They  were  discarded,  as  an  old  fashion 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  171 

is  discarded,  and  the  dressmaker  who  attempts  to  revive  it  is 
a  fool.  Lady  Ellington  certainly  was  not  that,  and  as  the 
motor  hummed  eastwards  towards  the  City  she  cast  no 
thought  backwards,  since  this  was  throwing  good  brain- 
power after  bad,  but  forwards.  In  half  an  hour  she  would 
be  with  Philip ;  what  was  to  be  her  line  ?  But,  puzzle  as 
she  might,  she  could  find  no  line  that  led  anywhere,  for 
at  the  end  of  each,  ready  to  meet  her  on  the  platform,  so 
to  speak,  stood  Evelyn  and  Madge  together. 

Lady  Ellington  was  going  through  quite  a  series  of  new 
sensations  this  afternoon,  and  here  was  one  she  had  scarcely 
ever  felt  before — for  in  addition  to  her  impotence  and  her 
anger,  she  was  feeling  flurried  and  frightened.  She  could 
not  yet  quite  believe  that  this  crash  was  inevitable,  but  it 
certainly  threatened,  and  threatened  in  a  toppling,  immi- 
nent manner.  And  thus  all  her  thinking  powers  were 
reduced  to  mere  miserable  apprehension. 

She  had  guessed  rightly  that  Philip  would  still  be  in  the 
City,  and  drove  straight  to  his  office.  He  was  engaged  at 
the  moment,  but  sent  out  word  that  he  would  see  her  as 
soon  as  he  possibly  could.  Meantime,  she  was  shown  into 
a  room  for  the  reception  of  clients,  and  left  alone  there. 
In  the  agitation  which  was  gaining  on  her  she  had  a  morbid 
sensitiveness  to  tiny  impressions,  and  the  trivial  details  of 
the  room  forced  themselves  in  on  her.  It  was  a  gloomy  sort 
of  little  well  set  in  the  middle  of  the  big  room,  with  its  rows 
of  clerks  on  high  stools  with  busy  pens.  The  morning's 
paper  lay  on  the  table.  There  was  an  empty  inkstand  there 
also,  and  a  carafe  of  water  with  a  glass  by  it.  A  weighing 
machine,  with  no  particular  reason  to  justify  its  existence, 
stood  in  one  corner;  against  the  wall  was  an  empty  book- 
case. The  Turkey  carpet  was  old  and  faded,  and  four  or 
€ve  mahogany  chairs  stood  against  the  wall.  Then,  after 
frpn  ixiixmtes  of  solitary  confinement  here,  the  door  opened 
and  Philip  came  in,  looking  rather  grave  as  was  his  wont, 
but  strong  and  self-reliant — the  sort  of  man  whom  anyone 
would  be  glad  to  have  on  his  side  in  any  emergency  or  diffi- 
culty. One  glance  at  her  was  sufficient  to  tell  him  that 
something  had  happened,  no  little  thing,  but  something 
serious;  and  though  he  had  intended  to  propose  that  they 
should  go  to  his  room,  he  shut  the  door  quickly  behind  him. 


172  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  What  is  it  ?"  he  said.  "  What  has  happened  ?  Is  it — is 
it  anything  about  Madge?" 

"  Oh !  Philip,  it  is  too  dreadful,"  she  began. 

Philip  drummed  on  the  table  with  his  fingers. 

"  Just  tell  me  straight,  please,"  he  said,  quite  quietly.  "  Is 
she  dead?" 

Lady  Ellington  got  up  and  leaned  her  elbow  on  the  chim- 
ney-piece, turning  away  from  him. 

"  I  have  just  come  from  Mr.  Dundas's  studio,"  she  said. 
"  Ah,  don't  interrupt  me,"  she  added,  as  Philip  made  a  sud- 
den involuntary  exclamation — "  let  me  get  through  with  it. 
I  left  Madge  with  him.  They  have  declared  their  love  for 
each  other." 

For  a  moment  or  two  he  did  not  seem  to  understand  what 
she  said,  for  he  frowned  as  if  puzzled,  as  if  she  had  spoken 
to  him  in  some  tongue  he  did  not  know. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  ?"  he  asked. 

Lady  Ellington's  own  most  acute  feelings  of  rage,  indig- 
nation, disappointment,  were  for  the  moment  altogether 
subordinated  by  her  pity  for  this  strong  man,  who  had  sud- 
denly been  dealt  this  shattering,  paralysing  blow.  If  he  had 
raged  and  stormed,  if  he  had  cursed  Madge  and  threatened 
to  shoot  Evelyn,  she  would  have  felt  less  sorry  for  him. 
But  the  quietness  with  which  he  received  it  was  more 
pathetic,  all  strength  had  gone  from  him. 

"  What  do  you  recommend  me  to  do  ?"  he  asked,  after  a 
pause. 

"  Ah,  that  is  what  I  have  been  trying  to  puzzle  out  all  the 
way  here,"  she  said.  "  Surely  you  can  do  something  ?  There 
must  be  something  to  be  done.  You're  not  going  to  sit 
down  under  this?  Don't  tell  me  that!  Go  to  the  studio, 
anyhow — my  motor  is  outside — storm,  rage,  threaten.  Take 
her  away.  Tell  him  to  her  face  what  sort  of  a  thing  he  has 
done!" 

Philip  still  exhibited  the  same  terrible  quietness,  un- 
natural, so  Lady  Ellington  felt  it,  though  she  was  not  mis- 
taken enough  to  put  it  down  to  want  of  feeling.  The  feel- 
ing, on  the  other  hand,  she  knew  was  like  some  close-fitting, 
metal  frame ;  it  was  the  very  strength  and  stricture  of  it  that 
prevented  his  moving.  Then  he  spoke  again. 

"And  what  has  he  done?"  he  asked.  "  He  has  fallen  in 
love  with  her.  I'm  sure  I  don't  wonder.  And  what  has  she 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  173 

done?    She  has  fallen  in  love  with  him.    And  I  don't  won- 
der at  that  either." 

Now  the  minutes  were  passing,  and  if  there  was  the 
slightest  chance  of  saving  the  situation,  it  had  to  be  taken 
now.  In  a  few  hours  even  it  might  easily  be  too  late. 

"  Just  go  there,"  she  said.  "  I  know  well  how  this  thing 
has  shattered  you,  so  that  you  can  hardly  feel  it  yet;  but 
perhaps  the  sight  of  them  together  may  rouse  you.  Perhaps 
the  sight  of  you  may  stir  in  Madge  some  sense  of  her  mon- 
strous behaviour.  I  would  sooner  she  had  died  on  her  very 
wedding-day  than  that  she  should  have  done  this.  It  is 
indecent.  It  is,  perhaps,  too,  only  a  passing  fancy,  she " 

But  here  she  stopped,  for  she  could  not  say  to  him  the 
rest  of  her  thought,  which  was  the  expression  of  the  hope 
that  Madge  might  return  to  her  quiet,  genuine  liking  for 
Philip.  But  she  need  scarcely  have  been  afraid,  for  in  his 
mind  now,  almost  with  the  vividness  of  a  hallucination,  was 
that  scene  on  the  terrace  of  the  house  at  Pangbourne,  when 
she  had  promised  him  esteem,  affection  and  respect,  all,  in 
fact,  that  she  knew  were  hers  to  give.  But  now  she  had 
more  to  give,  only  she  did  not  give  it  to  him. 

"  I  am  bound  to  do  anything  you  think  can  be  of  use,"  he 
said,  "  and,  therefore,  if  you  think  it  can  be  of  use  that  I 
should  go  there,  I  will  go.  I  do  not  myself  see  of  what  use 
it  can  be. 

"  It  may,"  said  Lady  Ellington.  "  There  is  a  chance, 
what,  I  can't  tell  you.  But  there  is  certainly  no  chance  any 
other  way." 

Then  his  brain  and  his  heart  began  to  stir  and  move  again 
a  little,  the  constriction  of  the  paralysis  was  passing  off. 

"  But  if  she  only  takes  me  out  of  pity,"  he  said,  "  I  will 
not  take  her  on  those  terms.  She  shall  not  be  my  wife  if 
she  knows  what  love  is  and  knows  it  for  another." 

Then  the  true  Lady  Ellington,  the  one  who  had  been  a 
little  obscured  for  the  last  ten  minutes  by  her  pity  for  Philip, 
came  to  the  light  again. 

"  Ah,  take  her  on  any  terms,"  she  cried.  "  It  will  be  all 
right.  She  will  love  you.  I  am  a  woman,  and  I  know  what 
women  are.  No  woman  has  ever  yet  made  the  absolute  ideal 
marriage  unless  she  was  a  fool.  Women  marry  more  or 
less  happily  ;  if  Madge  marries  you,  she  will  marry  extremely 
happily.  Take  my  word  for  that.  Now  go." 


174  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

Through  the  City  the  tides  of  traffic  were  at  their  height; 
all  down  the  Strand  also  there  was  no  break  or  calm  in  the 
surge  of  vehicles,  and  the  progress  of  the  motor  was  slow 
and  constantly  interrupted.  Sometimes  for  some  fifty  or  a 
hundred  yards  there  would  be  clear  running,  and  his 
thoughts  on  the  possibilities  which  might  exist  would  shoot 
ahead  also.  Then  came  a  slow  down,  a  check,  a  stop,  and 
he  would  tell  himself  that  he  might  spare  his  pains  in  going 
at  all.  True,  before  now  it  had  more  than  once  occurred 
to  him  as  conceivable  that  Evelyn  was  falling  in  love  with 
Madge,  but  on  every  occasion  when  this  happened  he  had 
whistled  the  thought  home  again,  telling  himself  that  he  had 
no  business  to  send  it  out  on  this  sort  of  errand.  That, 
however,  was  absolutely  all  the  preparation  he  had  had  for 
this  news,  and  he  had  to  let  it  soak  in,  for  at  first  it  stood 
like  a  puddle  after  a  heavy  storm  on  the  surface  of  his  mind. 
This  was  an  affair  of  many  minutes,  but  as  it  went  on  he 
began  to  realise  himself  the  utter  hopelessness  of  this  visit 
which  Lady  Ellington  had  recommended.  They  might  both 
of  them,  it  was  possible,  when  they  saw  him,  recoil  from  the 
bitter  wrong  they  were  doing,  the  one  to  his  friend,  the 
other  to  her  accepted  lover ;  but  how  could  that  recoil  remain 
permanent,  how  could  their  natural  human  shrinking  from 
this  cruelty  possibly  breed  the  rejection  of  each  by  the  other? 
However  much  he  himself  might  suffer,  though  their  pity 
for  him  was  almost  infinite,  though  they  might  even,  to  go 
to  the  furthest  possible  point,  settle  to  part, — yet  that  volun- 
tary separation,  if  both  agreed  to  it,  would  but  make  each  the 
more  noble,  the  more  admirable,  to  the  other.  Or  Madge 
again  alone,  in  spite  of  Evelyn,  might  say  she  could  not  go 
back  on  her  already  plighted  troth,  and  express  her  willing- 
ness to  marry  him.  She  might  go  even  further,  she  might 
sav,  and  indeed  feel,  that  it  was  only  by  keeping  her  word 
to  him  that  she  could  free  her  own  self,  her  own  moral 
nature,  from  the  sin  and  stain  in  which  she  had  steeped  it. 
Loyalty,  affection,  esteem  would  certainly  all  draw  her  to 
this,  but  it  was  impossible  that  in  her  eyes,  as  they  looked 
their  last  on  Evelyn,  there  should  not  be  regret  and  longing 
and  desire.  Whether  he  ever  saw  it  there  himself  or  not, 
Philip  must  know  it  had  been  there,  and  that  at  the  least 
the  memory  of  it  must  always  be  there. 

How  little  had  he   foreseen  this  or  anything  remotely 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  175 

resembling  it  on  that  moonlight  night.  She  promised  to 
give  him  then  all  that  she  was,  all  that  she  knew  of  in  her- 
self, and  it  was  with  a  thrill  of  love,  exquisite  and  secret, 
that  he  had  promised  himself  to  teach  her  what  she  did  not 
know.  It  should  be  he  who  would  wake  in  her  passion  and 
the  fire  and  the  flower  of  her  womanhood,  and  even  as  he 
had  already  given  himself  and  all  he  was  to  her,  so  she, 
as  the  fire  awoke,  should  find  that  precious  gift  of  herself 
to  him  daily  grow  in  worth  and  wonder.  It  was  that,  that 
last  and  final  gift  that  she  had  promised  now,  but  not  to 
him.  And  with  that  given  elsewhere,  he  felt  he  would  not, 
or  rather  could  not,  take  her,  even  if  it  was  to  deliver  her 
soul  from  hell  itself. 

Then  (and  in  justice  to  him  it  must  be  said  that  this 
lasted  only  for  a  little  time),  what  other  people  would  say 
weighed  on  him,  and  what  they  would  say  with  regard  to 
his  conduct  now.  And  for  the  same  minute's  pace  he  almost 
envied  those  myriad  many  to  whom  nothing  happens,  who 
know  nothing  of  the  extremes  of  joy,  such  as  he  had  felt, 
or  the  extremes  of  utter  abandonment  and  despair,  such  as 
were  his  now.  Assuredly,  in  the  world's  view,  it  was  now 
in  his  power  to  do  something  to  right  himself,  to  make  him- 
self appear,  anyhow,  what  is  called  a  man  of  spirit;  he 
could  curse  her,  he  could  strike  him ;  he  could  make  some 
explosion  or  threaten  it,  which  would  be  hard  for  either 
of  the  two  others  to  face.  Madge  had  sat  to  Evelyn  alone, 
she  had  often  done  that,  Evelyn  was  a  friend  of  his ;  and 
here  he  could  blast  him,  he  could  make  him  appear  such 
that  the  world  in  general  would  surely  decline  the  pleasure 
of  his  acquaintance.  Madge  again,  if  he  was  minded  on 
vengeance,  how  execrable,  how  rightly  execrable,  he  could 
make  her  conduct  appear.  There  was  no  end  to  the  damage, 
reckoning  damage  by  the  opinion  of  the  world,  that  he  could 
do  to  both  of  them.  All  this  he  could  easily  do ;  the  bake- 
meats  for  the  marriage-table  were,  so  to  speak,  already  hot 
— they  could  so  naturally  furnish  the  funeral-feast,  as  far 
as  the  world  was  concerned,  of  either  Evelyn  or  Madge. 
The  whole  thing  was  indecent. 

Step  by  step,  punctuated  to  the  innumerable  halts  of  the 
motor-car,  the  idea  gained  on  him.  Between  them  there 
had  been  made  an  attempt  to  wreck  him ;  wreck  he  was,  yet 
his  wreck  might  be  the  derelict  in  the  ocean  on  which  their 


176  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

own  pleasure-bark  would  founder.  At  that  moment  the 
desire  for  vengeance  struck  him  with  hot,  fiery  buffet,  but, 
as  it  were,  concealed  its  face  the  while,  so  that  he  should 
not  recognise  it  was  the  lust  for  vengeance  that  had  thus 
scorched  him,  and,  indeed,  it  appeared  to  him  that  he  only 
demanded  justice,  the  barest,  simplest  justice,  such  as  a 
criminal  never  demands  in  vain.  It  was  no  more  than  right 
that  Evelyn  should  reap  the  natural,  inevitable  harvest  of 
what  he  had  done,  and  since  Madge  had  joined  herself  to 
him,  it  must  be  to  her  home  also  that  he  should  bring  back 
the  bitter  sheaves.  Indeed,  should  Philip  himself  have 
mercy,  should  he  at  any  rate  keep  his  hand  from  any  deed 
and  his  tongue  from  any  word  that  could  hurt  them,  yet  that 
would  not  prevent  the  consequences  reaching  them,  for  the 
world  assuredly  would  not  treat  them  tenderly,  and  would 
only  label  him  spiritless  for  so  doing.  For  the  world,  to 
tell  the  truth,  is  not,  in  spite  of  its  twenty  centuries  of 
Christianity,  altogether  kind  yet,  and  when  buffeted  on  one 
cheek  does  not  as  a  rule  turn  the  other.  More  especially  is 
this  so  when  one  of  its  social  safeguards  is  threatened;  it 
does  not  immediately  surrender  and  invite  the  enemy  to 
enter  the  next  fort.  And  the  jilt — which  Madge  assuredly 
was,  though  perhaps  to  jilt  him  was  akin  to  a  finer  morality 
than  to  go  through  with  her  arranged  marriage — is  an 
enemy  of  Society.  Male  or  female,  the  jilt,  like  the  person 
who  cheats  at  cards,  will  not  do ;  to  such  people  it  is  impos- 
sible to  be  kind,  for  they  have  transgressed  one  of  Society's 
precious  little  maxims,  that  you  really  must  not  do  these 
things,  because  they  lead  to  so  much  worry  and  discomfort. 
Wedding-presents  have  to  be  sent  back,  arrangements  innu- 
merable have  to  be  countermanded,  subjects  have  to  be 
avoided  in  the  presence  of  the  injured  parties. 

It  was  the  unworthier  Philip,  as  he  drove  to  Chelsea,  who 
let  these  thoughts  find  harbourage  in  his  mind.  But  some- 
where deep  down  in  his  inner  consciousness,  he  knew  that 
there  was  something  finer  to  be  done,  something  that  the 
world  would  deride  and  laugh  at,  if  he  did  it.  How  much 
better  he  knew  to  disregard  that,  and  to  be  big ;  to  go  there, 
to  say  that  his  own  engagement  to  Madge  was  based  on  a 
mistake,  a  misconception,  to  accept  what  had  happened,  to 
tell  them,  as  some  inner  and  nobler  fibre  of  his  soul  told 
him,  that  his  own  personal  sorrow  weighed  nothing  as  com- 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  177 

pared  with  the  more  essential  justice  of  two  who  loved  each 
other  being  absolutely  free,  however  much  external  cir- 
cumstances retarded,  to  marry.  He  was  capable  even  in 
this  early  smart  of  conceiving  that ;  was  he  capable  of  acting 
up  to  it? 

He  was  but  twenty  doors  from  the  studio  in  King's  Road 
when  the  finer  way  became  definite  in  his  mind, ,  and  he 
called  to  the  chauffeur  to  stop,  for  he  literally  did  not  know 
if  he  could  do  this.  But  he  realised  that  otherwise  his  visit 
would  be  better  left  unpaid ;  there  was  no  good  in  his  going 
there,  if  he  was  to  do  anything  else  than  this.  Then  he  got 
out  of  the  car. 

"  You  can  go  home,"  he  said  to  the  chauffeur. 

The  man  touched  his  cap  in  acknowledgment  of  the  tip 
that  Philip  gave  him,  waited  for  a  lull  in  the  traffic,  and 
turned.  Philip  was  left  alone  on  the  pavement,  looking  after 
the  yellow-panelled  carriage. 

Then  he  turned  round  quickly ;  his  mind  was  already  made 
up;  he  would  go  there,  he  would  act  as  all  that  was  truly 
best  in  him  dictated.  But  as  he  hesitated,  looking  back,  two 
figures  had  come  close  to  him  from  a  door  near,  hailing  a 
hansom.  When  he  turned  they  were  close  to  him. 

His  eyes  blazed  suddenly  with  a  hard,  angry  light;  his 
mouth  trembled,  the  sight  of  them  together  roused  in  him 
the  full  sense  of  the  injury  he  had  suffered. 

"  Ah,  there  you  are !"  he  cried.  "  I  curse  you  both ;  I 
pray  that  the  misery  you  have  brought  on  me  may  return 
double-fold  to  you!" 

Evelyn  had  drawn  back  a  step,  putting  his  arm  out  to 
shelter  Madge,  for  it  seemed  as  if  Philip  would  strike  her. 
But  the  next  moment  he  turned  on  his  heel  again,  and 
walked  away  from  them. 


TWELFTH 


'RS.  Home  was  walking  gently  up  and  down  the 
terrace  in  front  of  the  drawing-room  windows  at 
her  son's  house  above  Pangbourne.  The  deep  heat 
of  the  July  afternoon  lay  heavily  on  river  and  land 
and  sky,  for  the  last  fortnight,  even  in  the  country,  had  been 
of  scorching  sort,  and  the  great  thunderstorm  which,  ten 
days  ago,  had  been  as  violent  here  as  in  the  New  Forest,  had 
not  sensibly  relieved  the  air.  Philip  had  not  been  down  for 
nearly  a  month,  and  his  mother,  though  she  knew  nothing 
about  gardening  (her  ideal  of  a  garden-bed  was  a  row  of 
lobelias,  backed  by  a  row  of  calceolarias,  backed  by  a  row 
of  scarlet  geraniums),  felt  vaguely  that  though  she  did  not 
at  all  understand  the  sort  of  thing  Philip  wanted,  he  would 
be  disappointed  about  the  present  result.  For  to-day  she 
had  received  a  telegram  from  him — he  telegraphed  the  most 
iniquitously  lengthy  and  unnecessary  communication — say- 
ing that  he  would  arrive  that  evening.  Surely  a  postcard 
even  the  day  before  would  have  conveyed  as  much  as  this 
telegram,  which  told  her  that  he  was  coming  down  alone, 
that  he  wished  a  reply  if  anyone  was  staying  with  her,  and, 
if  so,  who,  that  he  was  leaving  Madge  in  London,  and  that 
Evelyn,  who  had  proposed  himself  for  this  last  Saturday  till 
Monday  in  July,  was  not  coming.  Also — this  was  all  in 
the  telegram  for  which  a  postcard  the  day  before  could 
have  done  duty — Gladys  Ellington  and  her  husband,  who 
were  to  have  spent  the  three  days  with  them,  were  unable  to 
come,  and  he  supposed,  therefore,  that  his  mother  and  he 
would  be  alone.  The  little  party,  in  fact,  that  had  been 
arranged  would  not  take  place ;  he  himself  would  come  down 
there  as  expected,  but  nobody  else. 

^  To  Mrs.  Home  this  was  all  glad  news  of  a  secret  kind. 

She  had  seen  so  little  of  Philip  lately,  and  to  her  mother's 

heart  it  was  a  warming  thing  to  know  that  he  was  to  spend 

the  last  Sunday  of  his  bachelor  life  with  her,  and  with 

178 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  179 

nobody  else.    To  say  that  she  had  been  hurt  at  his  wishing 
the  family  into  which  he  was  to  marry  being  present  on  these 
last  days  before  he  definitely  left  his  mother  tc  cleave  to 
his  wife  would  be  grossly  misinterpreting  her  feeling;  only 
she  was  herself  glad  that  she  would  have  him  alone  just  once 
more.    For  the  two  had  been  not  only  mother  and  son,  but 
the  most  intimate  of  friends ;  none  had  held  so  close  a  place 
to  him,  and  now  that  Mrs.  Home  felt,  rightly  enough,  that 
henceforward  she  must  inevitably  stand  second  in  his  con- 
fidence, she  was,  selfishly  she  was  afraid  but  quite  indubi- 
tably, delighted  to  know  that  they  were  to  have  one  more 
little  time  quite  alone.    All  that  was  to  be  said  between  them 
had  already  been  said,  she  had  for  herself  no  last  words, 
and  felt  sure  that  Philip  had  not  either,  and  she  rehearsed 
in  her  mind  the  quiet,  ordinary  little  occupations  that  should 
make  the  days  pass  so  pleasantly,  as  they  had  always  passed 
when  they  two  were  alone  together.    Philip  would  get  down 
by  tea-time  on  Saturday,  and  was  sure  to  spend  a  couple  of 
hours  in  the  garden  or  on  the  river.     Then  would  follow 
dinner  out  on  the  terrace  if  this  heat  continued,  and  after 
dinner    she    would    probably    play    Patience,    while    Philip 
watched  her  as  he  smoked  from  a  chair  beside  her  observing 
with  vigilant  eye  any  attempt  to  cheat  on  her  part.     Mrs. 
Home's  appetite  for  cards  was  indeed  somewhat  minute,  and 
if  after  twenty  minutes  or  so  Miss  Milligan,  unlike  a  grow- 
ing girl,  showed  no  signs  of  "  coming  out,"  she  would,  it 
must  be  confessed,  enable  her  to  do  so  by  means  not  strictly 
legitimate.     Sometimes  one  such  evasion  on  her  part  would 
pass  unnoticed  by  Philip,  which  encouraged  her,  if  the  laws 
of  chance  or  her  own  want  of  skill  still  opposed  the  desired 
consummation,  to  cheat  again.    But  this  second  attempt  was 
scarcely  ever  successful,  she  was  almost  always  found  out, 
and  Philip  demanded  a  truthful  statement  as  to  whether  a 
similar  lamentable  indiscretion  had  occurred  before.     When 
they  were  alone,  too,   Philip  always   read  prayers   in  the 
evening,  some  short  piece  of  the  Bible,  followed  by  a  few 
collects.    This  little  ceremony  somehow  was  more  intimately 
woven  in  with  Mrs.  Home's  conception  of  "  Philip  "  than 
anything  else.    It  must  be  feared,  indeed,  that  the  dear  little 
old  lady  did  not  pay  very  much  attention  either  to  the  chap- 
ter he  read  or  the  prayers  he  said,  but  "Philip   reading 
Prayers  "  was  a  very  precious  and  a  very  integral  part  of 


180  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

her  life.  His  strong,  deep  voice,  his  strong,  handsome  face 
vividly  illuminated  by  the  lamp  he  would  put  close  to  him, 
the  row  of  silent  servants,  the  general  sense  of  good  and 
comforting  words,  if  comfort  was  needed,  words,  anyhow, 
that  were  charged  with  protection  and  love,  all  these  things 
were  a  very  real  part  of  that  biggest  thing  in  her  life, 
namely,  that  she  was  his  mother,  and  he  her  son.  Her  son, 
bone  of  her  bone,  and  born  of  her  body,  and  how  dear  even 
he  did  not  guess. 

Sunday  took  up  the  tale  that  was  so  sweet  to  her.  He 
would  be  late  for  breakfast,  as  he  always  was,  and  very  likely 
she  would  have  finished  before  he  came  down.  But  she 
never  missed  hearing  his  foot  on  the  polished  boards  of  the 
hall,  and  if  he  was  very  late  she  would  have  rung  for  a 
fresh  teapot  before  he  entered  the  room,  since  she  had  a 
horror,  only  equalled  by  her  horror  of  snakes,  of  tea  that  had 
stood  long.  Often  he  was  so  late  that  his  bVeakfast  really  had 
to  be  curtailed  if  they  were  to  get  to  church  before  the  ser- 
vice began,  for  they  always  walked  there,  and  her  mind  was 
sometimes  painfully  divided  as  to  whether  it  would  not  be 
better  to  be  late  rather  than  that  he  should  have  an  insuffi- 
cient breakfast.  She  had  heard  great  things  of  Plasmon.and 
a  year  ago  had  secretly  bought  a  small  tin  of  that  highly 
nutritious  though  perhaps  slightly  insipid  powder,  of  which 
she  meant  to  urge  a  tablespoonful  on  Philip  if  he  seemed 
to  her  not  to  have  had  enough  to  eat  before  he  started  for 
church,  since  apparently  this  would  be  the  equivalent  of 
several  mutton  chops.  But  the  tin  had  remained  unopened, 
and  only  a  few  weeks  ago  she  had  thrown  it  away,  having 
read  some  case  of  tinned-food  poisoning  in  the  papers.  How 
dreadful  if  she  meant  to  give  him  the  equivalent  of  several 
mutton  chops,  and  had  succeeded  only  in  supplying  him  with 
a  fatal  dose  of  ptomaine ! 

Then  after  the  walk  back  through  the  pleasant  fields  there 
would  be  lunch,  and  after  lunch  in  this  July  heat,  long 
lounging  in  some  sheltered  spot  in  the  garden.  Tea  fol- 
lowed, and  after  tea  Philip's  invariable  refusal  to  go  to 
church  again,  and  her  own  invariable  yielding  to  his  wish 
that  she  should  not  go  either.  That  again  was  an  old- 
established  affair,  uninteresting  and  unessential  no  doubt  to 
those  who  drive  four-in-hand  through  life,  but  to  this  quiet 
old  lady,  whose  nature  had  grown  so  fine  through  long  years 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  181 

of  speckless  life,  a  part  of  herself.  He  would  urge  the  most 
absurd  reasons ;  she  would  be  going  alone,  and  would  prob- 
ably be  waylaid  and  robbed  for  the  sake  of  her  red-and-gold 
Church-service ;  it  threatened  rain,  and  she  would  catch  the 
most  dreadful  rheumatism ;  or  life  was  uncertain  at  the  best, 
and  this  might  easily  be  the  last  Sunday  that  he  would  spend 
here,  and  how  when  she  had  buried  him  about  Wednesday 
would  she  like  the  thought  that  she  had  refused  his  ultimate 
request?  This  last  appeal  was  generally  successful,  and  it 
was  left  for  Mrs.  Home  to  explain  to  their  vicar,  who  always 
dined  with  them  on  Sunday,  her  unusual  absence.  This  she 
did  very  badly,  and  Philip  never  helped  her  out.  It  was  a 
point  of  honour  that  she  should  not  say  that  it  was  he  who 
had  induced  her  to  stay  away,  and  his  grave  face  watching 
her  from  the  other  side  of  the  table  as  she  invented  the  most 
futile  of  excuses,  seemed  to  her  to  add  insult  to  the  injury 
he  had  already  done  her  in  obliging  her  to  invent  what 
would  not  have  deceived  a  sucking  child. 

Then  on  Monday  morning  he  would  generally  have  to 
leave  for  town  very  early,  but  if  this  was  the  case,  he  always 
came  to  her  room  to  wish  her  good-bye.  And  her  good-bye 
to  him  meant  what  it  said.  "  God  be  with  you,  my  dear," 
was  it,  and  she  added  always,  "  Come  again  as  soon  as  you 
can." 

All  these  things,  the  memory  of  those  days  and  hours 
which  were  so  inexpressibly  dear  to  her,  moved  gently  and 
evenly  in  Mrs.  Home's  mind,  even  as  the  shadows  drew 
steadily  and  slowly  across  the  grass  as  she  walked  up  and 
down  awaiting  his  arrival.  And  if  sadness  was  there  at  all, 
it  was  only  the  wonderful  and  beautiful  sadness  that  per- 
vaded the  evening  hour  itself,  the  hour  when  shadows 
lengthen,  and  the  coolness  of  the  sunset  tells  us  that  the  day, 
the  serene  and  sunlit  day,  is  drawing  to  a  close.  That  the 
day  should  end  was  inevitable ;  the  preciousness  of  sunlit 
hours  was  valued  because  night  would  follow  them,  for  had 
they  been  known  to  be  everlasting,  the  joy  of  plucking  their 
sweetness  would  have  vanished.  And  the  same  shadowed 
thought  was  present  in  Mrs.  Home's  mind  as  she  thought 
how  the  evening  of  her  particular  relationship  to  Philip  was 
come;  all  these  memories,  though  dear  they  would  always 
be,  gathered  a  greater  fragrance  because  in  the  nature  of 
things  they  must  be  temporary  and  transitory,  even  as  the 


182  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

memory  of  childish  days  is  dear  simply  because  one  is  a 
child  no  longer.  While  childhood  remained  they  were  un- 
coloured  by  romance,  the  romance  the  halo  of  them  only 
begins  to  glow  when  it  is  known  that  they  are  soon  to  be 
at  an  end. 

Yet  Mrs.  Home  would  not  have  had  anything  different; 
that  her  relation  to  Philip  must  fade  as  the  day-star  in  the 
light  of  dawn,  she  had  always  known.  Even  when  the  day- 
star  was  very  bright  and  the  dawn  not  yet  hinted  in  Eastern 
skies,  she  knew  that,  and  now  when  the  whole  East  was 
suffused  with  the  rosy  glow,  she  would  not  have  delayed  the 
upleap  of  the  resplendent  sun  by  an  hour  or  a  minute.  For 
old-age  unembittered  was  her's,  and  in  the  completeness  and 
fulness  of  Philip's  manhood,  not  in  keeping  him  unde- 
veloped and  unstung  by  the  sunlight,  though  through  it 
was  flung  bitter  foam  of  the  sea  that  breaks  forever  round 
this  life  of  man,  she  realised  not  herself  only  but  him  most 
fully  and  best.  She  would  not  retain  him,  even  if  she  could ; 
he  had  got  to  live  his  life,  and  make  it  as  round  and  per- 
fect as  it  could  be  made.  It  was  her  part  only  to  watch  from 
the  shore  as  he  put  out  into  the  breakers,  and  wish  him 
God-speed.  Yet  now,  as  far  as  she  could  forecast,  no 
breakers  were  there,  a  calm  sunny  ocean  awaited  him ;  there 
was  but  the  tide  which  would  bear  him  smoothly  out.  How 
far  he  would  go,  whether  out  of  sight  of  the  land,  where  she 
strained  dim  eyes  after  him,  or  whether,  so  to  speak,  he 
should  anchor  close  to  her,  she  did  not  know.  He  had  now 
to  put  out ;  once  more  they — he  and  she  alone — would  play 
together  on  the  sands,  but  each  would  know — he  very  much 
more  than  she,  that  they  played  together  for  the  last  time. 
After  this  he  must,  as  he  ought,  take  another  for  his  play- 
mate. And  if  at  the  thought  her  kind  blue  eyes  were  a 
little  dim,  it  was  the  flesh  only  that  was  weak.  With  all  her 
soul  she  bade  him  push  out,  and  if  to  herself  she  said :  "  Oh, 
Philip!  must  you  go?"  all  in  herself  that  she  wished  to  be 
reckoned  by,  all  that  was  truly  herself,  said  "  God-speed  " 
to  him. 

The  gardeners  at  Pangbourne  Court  had  been  startled  into 
dreadful  activity  that  day.  "The  master,"  it  was  known, 
would  be  down  for  this  Sunday,  but  "  the  master  "  by  him- 
self was  a  much  more  formidable  affair  than  he  with  a  party. 
As  Philip  had  conjectured  at  Whitsuntide,  there  would  come 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  183 

a  break  in  the  happy  life  of  the  garden,  and  it  was  quite 
indubitably  here  now.  The  hot  and  early  summer  which 
had  produced  so  glorious  an  array  of  blossom  in  that  June 
week  now  exacted  payment  for  that;  roses  which  should 
have  flowered  into  August  had  exhausted  themselves,  the 
blooms  of  summer  were  really  over,  while  the  autumn  plants 
were  still  immature.  All  this  was  really  not  the  fault  of 
the  gardeners,  but  of  the  weather ;  but,  as  has  been  said,  they 
were  stirred  into  immense  activity  by  the  prospect  of  Philip's 
arrival,  since  if  the  beds  presented  a  fair  show,  he  would  be 
more  likely  to  be  lenient  to  other  deficiencies.  But  Mrs. 
Home,  as  she  went  up  and  down  the  paths  waiting  for  his 
arrival,  saw  but  too  clearly  that  things  were  not  quite  as 
they  should  be.  A  dryness,  an  arrest  of  growth,  seemed  to 
have  laid  hands  on  the  beds;  it  was  as  if  some  catastrophe 
had  stricken  the  vegetable  kingdoms  that  withered  and 
blighted  them.  The  grass  of  the  lawn,  too,  lacked  the  vivid- 
ness of  the  velvet  that  so  delighted  Philip's  London-wearied 
eye — there  were  patches  of  brown  and  withered  green  every- 
where, instead  of  the  "  excellent  emerald."  Yet,  perhaps, 
surely  almost,  he  would  not  vex  himself  with  that.  Three 
days  only  intervened  between  now  and  the  twenty-eighth ; 
he  would  have  no  fault  to  find  with  anything  in  the  sunlight 
of  life  which  so  streamed  on  him. 

She  was  passing  between  two  old  hedges  of  yew,  compact 
and  thick  of  growth  as  a  brick  wall,  and  impervious  to  the 
vision.  Her  own  path  lay  over  the  grass,  but  on  either  far 
side  of  these  hedges  was  a  gravel  walk,  and  half-way  up 
this  she  heard  a  footstep  sounding  crisply.  For  one  moment 
she  thought  it  was  Philip's,  and  nearly  called  to  him,  the 
next  she  smiled  at  herself  for  having  thought  so,  for  it  alto- 
gether lacked  the  brisk  decision  with  which  he  walked,  and 
she  made  sure  it  was  one  of  the  gardeners.  It  went  parallel 
with  her,  however,  in  the  same  direction,  and  when  she  got 
to  the  end  of  her  own  yew-girt  avenue,,  she  met  the  owner 
of  the  footstep  in  the  little  sunk  Alpine  garden,  which  was 
Philip's  especial  delight.  It  was  he.  She  had  not  recognised 
the  footstep,  and  though  when  they  met,  her  eyes  told  her 
that  this  certainly  was  her  son,  it  was  someone  so  different 
from  him  whom  she  knew  that  she  scarcely  recognised  him. 

Misery  sat  in  his  face,  misery  and  a  hardness  as  of  iron. 
He  often  looked  stern,  often  looked  tired,  but  now  it  seemed 


184  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

as  if  it  was  of  life  that  he  was  tired,  and  his  whole  face  was 
inflexible  and  inexorable.  It  was  not  the  sort  of  misery 
that  could  break  down  and  sob  itself  into  acquiescence,  it 
was  the  misery  of  the  soul  into  which  the  iron  has  entered. 
And  mother  and  son  looked  at  each  other  long  without 
speaking,  he  with  that  face  and  soul  of  iron,  she  with  a 
hundred  terrors  winnowing  her.  He  had  not  given  her  any 
greeting,  nor  she  him.  Then  she  clasped  her  hands  together 
in  speechless  entreaty,  and  held  them  out  to  him.  But  still 
he  said  nothing,  and  it  was  she  who  spoke  first. 

"  Philip,  what  is  it  ?"  she  said.  "  Whatever  it  is,  tell  me 
quickly,  my  dear.  I  can  bear  to  know  anything.  I  cannot 
bear  not  to." 

He  looked  away  from  her  for  a  moment,  striking  the 
gravel  with  his  stick. 

"  Madge  ?"  said  Mrs.  Home.    "  Is  she  dead  ?" 

Yet  even  as  she  spoke  she  knew  it  was  not  that.  That, 
even  that,  would  not  have  made  Philip  like  this.  He  would 
have  come  to  her  to  be  comforted ;  it  was  not  comfort  that 
he  asked  for. 

"  No,  she  is  not  dead,"  he  said.  "  I  wish  she  was.  She 
has  betrayed  me  and  thrown  me  over.  She  is  probably  by 
this  time  married  to  Evelyn  Dundas!" 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"  That  is  what  has  happened,"  he  said ;  "  and,  here  to  you 
and  now,  mother,  I  curse  them  both.  I  met  them  together 
yesterday,  I  cursed  them  to  their  faces.  There  is  nothing  I 
will  not  do  that  can  damage  them  in  any  way.  I  will  ruin 
him  if  I  can,  and  I  will  wait  long  for  my  vengeance  if  need 
be.  I  tried  to  forgive  them,  I  tried  to  go  to  the  house  and 
tell  them  so,  but  I  could  not.  I  don't  forgive  them,  and  if 
for  that  reason  God  does  not  forgive  me  what  I  have  done 
amiss,  I  don't  care.  I  would  forgive  them  if  I  could;  I 
can't.  If  that  is  wrong  I  can't  help  it.  It  is  better  you 
should  know  this  at  once.  I  am  sorry  if  it  hurts  you,  but 
there  is  no  manner  of  use  in  my  trying  to  '  break  it '  to  you, 
as  they  call  it.  Break  it !  It  is  I  who  am  broken !" 

Then  all  the  tenderness  of  maternity,  all  the  years  of  love 
between  her  and  Philip,  the  complete  confidence  which  had 
forged  so  strong  and  golden  a  chain  between  them,  rose  in 
Mrs.  Home's  mind  and  sent  to  her  lips  the  only  answer  she 
could  make.  Sorrow  for  him,  sympathy  with  him,  of  course 


THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN  185 

he  took  for  granted ;  there  was  no  need  to  speak  of  things 
like  these. 

"Ah,  dear  Philip,  unsay  that,  unsay  that!"  she  cried. 
"  Whatever  happens  to  one,  it  is  impossible  that  you  should 
feel  that!" 

He  looked  at  her  with  the  same  glooming  face. 

"  I  don't  unsay  it,"  he  said,  "  I  don't  unsay  one  single 
word  of  it.  In  proportion  as  both  of  them  were  dear  to  me, 
so  is  that  which  has  happened  detestable  to  me.  I  don't 
want  to  talk  about  it — there  is  no  use  in  that.  I  have  got 
to  begin  my  life  again ;  that  is  what  it  comes  to,  and  I  have 
to  begin  it  on  a  basis  of  hate  and  utter  distrust.  Two  people  / 
who  were  the  friends  of  my  heart,  people  whom  I  could  have 
trusted,  so  I  should  have  thought,  to  the  uttermost  verge  of 
eternity,  have  done  this." 

Then  all  his  bitterness,  and  there  was  much  of  that,  all 
his  resentment  and  anger,  all  his  love  gone  sour,  rose  in  his 
throat. 

"  For  what  guarantee  have  I  now,"  he  cried,  "  that  every- 
one else  whom  I  trusted  will  not  behave  to  me  like  that? 
You,  mother,  you,  what  plans  and  plots  may  you  not  have 
got  against  me?  It  is  all  very  well  to  say  that  you  cannot, 
that  you  are  my  friend.  But  what  is  my  experience  of 
friends?  They  are  those  who  know  one  best,  and  can  thus 
stab  most  deeply.  God  defend  me  from  my  friends — I 
would  sooner  shake  hands  with  my  enemies.  Ah !  I  forgive 
them,  for  I  might  know  that  they  were  enemies ;  but,  fool 
that  I  was,  I  never  guessed  that  my  friends  were  but  enemies 
who  sat  at  my  table.  They  ate  my  food — I  wish  it  had 
choked  them ;  they  drank  my  wine  again  and  again — I  wish 
I  had  poisoned  it.  For  they  have  poisoned  me,  they  have 
made  my  life  impossible.  Ah,  don't  say  I  shall  get  over  it! 
That  is  silly.  How  can  I  get  over  it?  For  if  I  could,  I 
should  not  say  these  things  to  you.  I  should  be  silent,  I 
hope,  and  trust  to  what  is  called  the  healing  hand  of  Time. 
But  there  are  certain  things  Time  never  heals.  One  of 
them  is  the  infidelity  of  those  whom  one  thought  were 
friends." 

He  was  speaking  quickly  now,  the  bile  of  bitterness  over- 
flowed. 

"  Friends !"  he  said.  "  Madge  and  Evelyn  and  I  were 
friends.  But  they  two  have  done  this  accursed  thing.  And 


186  THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

if  I  have  another  friend  in  this  world,  I  shall  now  expect 
him  to  believe  the  chance  word  of  any  lying  tongue.  Apart 
from  you,  I  have  one  friend  left,  and  if  Tom  Merivale  told 
me  to-morrow  that  I  had  cheated  at  cards,  and  that  in  con- 
sequence he  declined  the  pleasure  of  my  further  acquaint- 
ance, I  should  not  be  surprised.  I  believe  nothing  good  of 
my  friends,  and  I  believe  less  harm  of  my  enemies !  They, 
anyhow,  can  hurt  me  less.  I  have  had  but  four  friends  in 
my  life,  and  yet  even  with  four,  fool  that  I  was,  I  counted 
myself  rich  in  them.  Two  have  gone,  and  there  are  just  two 
people  in  this  world  whom  I  hate.  Till  yesterday  there  were 
none." 

Mrs.  Home  laid  her  hand  timidly  on  his  arm. 

"  Philip,  dear  Philip,"  she  said,  "  is  there  any  good  in 
saying  these  things?  Does  it  help  in  any  way  what  has 
happened,  or  does  it  help  you  ?" 

"  No,  it  does  no  good,"  said  he.  "  I  don't  want  to  do  any 
good.  I  just  choose  to  say  what  I  am  saying,  and  what  I 
say,  I  assure  you,  is  no  exaggeration  of  what  I  feel — it  does 
not  even  do  justice  to  what  I  feel.  One  thing  I  have  mis- 
stated, or  it  was  but  a  mood  of  the  moment.  I  said  I  was 
broken ;  I  am  nothing  of  the  sort.  I  never  did  a  better  day's 
work  than  to-day.  But  I  don't  want  to  say  these  things 
again,  and  I  have  no  intention  of  doing  so.  I  beg  you  also 
never  to  refer  to  them.  But  I  choose  just  this  once  to  say 
what  my  feeling  towards  them  is.  I  tried,  indeed  I  tried 
my  best,  to  forgive  them,  but  I  can't.  I  can  no  more  now 
conceive  forgiving  them  than  a  blind  man  can  conceive  the 
colour  of  that  rose.  I  loved  them  both,  and  in  proportion 
as  my  love  for  them  was  strong,  so  is  my  hate  for  them." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"  That  is  all,"  he  said.  "  I  wanted  you  to  know  that,  and 
to  be  under  no  misconception  as  to  what  I  felt.  Let  us  never 
talk  of  either  of  them  again.  I  have  already  given  all  neces- 
sary orders  in  London,  and  all  I  have  to  do  here  is  to  send 
back  all  wedding  presents.  I  will  do  that  to-night." 

He  looked  at  her  a  moment  as  she  stood  there  with  hands 
that  trembled  and  eyes  that  were  dim,  pitying  him  to  the 
bottom  of  her  kind,  loving  soul,  but  imploring  him,  so  he 
felt,  not  to  be  like  this.  And  the  pity  reached  and  touched 
him,  though  the  entreaty  did  not. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  187 

"  Poor  mother,"  he  said.  "  I  am  sorry  for  you,  indeed  I 
am  that.  We  have  not  kissed  yet,  or  shaken  hands." 

But  Mrs.  Home,  gentle  and  loving  and  pitiful  as  she  was, 
could  not  do  quite  as  he  asked,  though  her  hands  and  her 
lips  yearned  for  him. 

"No,  Philip,"  she  said;  "but  with  whom  do  I  shake 
hands,  and  whom  do  I  kiss?  You,  the  Philip  who  is  my 
son,  or  the  man  who  has  said  this?  Indeed,  dear,  I  know 
you  well,  and  it  is  not  you  who  have  spoken." 

He  looked  at  her  steadily. 

"  Yes,  it  is  I  who  have  spoken,"  he  said.  "  This  is  now 
your  son,  the  man  who  has  said  these  things.  Do  you  cast 
me  off,  too?" 

Unfair,  unjust  as  the  words  were,  she  felt  no  pang  of 
resentment  with  him,  telling  herself  that  he  was  not  him- 
self. And,  whatever  he  was,  her  relationship  to  him,  she 
knew,  could  never  be  altered.  If  he  was  lying  in  the  con- 
demned cell  for  some  brutal  murder,  whatever  he  had  done 
or  been  could  never  make  any  difference  to  that.  He  knew 
that,  too,  his  best  self  knew  it,  and  it  was  to  his  best  self 
she  spoke. 

"  You  know  I  can  never  cast  you  off,"  she  said,  "  and 
those  were  wild  words  but  they  are  unsaid.  Here  is  my 
hand,  my  darling,  and  here  are  my  lips.  You  want  me  also 
never  to  say  any  more  about  it.  I  will  not ;  but  I  must  say 
this  about  you — that  you  will  not  always  feel  like  this.  I 
know  you  will  not.  And  when  the  change  comes,  tell  me. 
You  cannot  take  that  belief  away  from  me." 

He  kissed  her,  holding  both  her  hands  in  his,  but  his  face 
did  not  relax. 

"  Poor  mother !"  he  said  again. 

They  walked  back  towards  the  house  together,  down  the 
grassy  walk  between  the  yew  hedges,  where  Mrs.  Home  had 
first  heard  his  footstep,  and  Philip,  according  to  contract, 
began  at  once  to  speak  of  other  things.  Dismal  though  this 
was,  it  was  still  perhaps  better  than  silence;  whatever  had 
happened,  the  present  was  with  them,  and  the  present  had 
to  be  lived  through ;  ordinary  human  intercourse  had  got 
to  be  continued.  Whether  in  the  immediate  future  he  would 
go  abroad,  and  try  by  the  conventional  prescription  of  trav- 
elling to  find,  if  not  relief,  at  any  rate  the  sense  of  unreality 
that  travelling  and  change  sometimes  give,  he  had  not  yet 


188  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

determined,  though  the  idea  had  occurred  to  him.  He  was 
still  really  incapable  of  making  plans  at  all,  he  could  not 
yet  face  the  future,  but,  so  far  as  he  had  considered  it,  he 
was  not  disposed  to  think  that  he  would  try  it.  For  idleness 
to  a  man  accustomed  to  lead  a  very  busy  life,  a  life,  too, 
which  every  day  demands  concentration  of  thought  and 
decisiveness  of  action,  is  in  itself  irksome,  even  though  the 
panorama  of  foreign  lands  and  skies  is  drawn  by  before  him. 
To  such  a  mind,  even  when  it  is  at  peace  with  itself,  a  holi- 
day is  generally  only  a  means  of  recuperation,  and  the  recu- 
peration effected,  such  a  man  frets  to  be  at  work  again,  and 
to  him  now,,  with  this  dreadful  background  always  with 
him,  the  idea  of  travel  appealed  very  little.  He  would  be 
better,  so  he  thought,  back  at  work,  and  the  harder  and 
more  continuously  he  worked,  the  less  intolerable,  perhaps, 
would  be  the  burden  which  he  carried  about  with  him. 
Truly,  we  make  our  own  heaven  and  hell,  and  since  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  within  us,  so  also  within  us  are  the 
flames  of  the  nethermost  pit. 

But  in  those  three  minutes  as  they  went  back  again  to  the 
house,  Mrs.  Home  made  her  resolve.  Whatever  it  cost  her, 
and  however  difficult  each  minute  might  be,  however  much 
she  might  long  herself  to  go  and  weep,  or  better  still,  to 
weep  with  him,  she  would  do  her  very  best  to  act  as  he  had 
wished,  and  never  in  thought  or  word  dwell  on  the  past. 
A  tragedy  had  happened ;  but  it  was  necessary  to  go  on,  to 
begin  life  again,  not  to  sit  and  bewail;  nothing  was  ever 
cured,  so  she  told  herself,  by  thinking  of  what  might  have 
been  avoided,  if  things  had  been  different.  But  things  were 
this  way  and  not  otherwise,  and  that  which  had  not  been 
avoided  had  already  become  part  of  the  imperishable  past, 
the  hours  of  which  are,  indeed,  reckoned  up,  but  do  not 
perish,  since  it  is  of  them  that  the  present  is  made. 

She  left  him  after  this  to  go  round  the  garden ;  he  had 
already  sent  for  the  head-gardener,  who  was  waiting  as 
bidden  at  the  front  door,  in  some  trepidation  of  mind.  Mrs. 
Home  hated  to  have  to  scold  and  find  fault,  she  hated  also 
that  Philip  should  do  it,  and  she  went  indoors  instead  of 
accompanying  him.  There  was  no  sweeter  and  kinder  soul 
in  this  world  than  she,  and  even  now,  when  her  heart  bled 
for  her  son,  no  vindictiveness  or  desire  for  revenge  on  those 
who  had  made  him  suffer  so  had  place  in  her  mind.  But 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  189 

forgiveness  could  not  be  there  yet,  and  it  was  the  most  she 
could  do  to  resolve  not  to  think  about  either  Madge  or 
Evelyn.  Philip's  sorrow  and  what  faint  consolation  or  pal- 
liation she  could  bring  to  that  was  enough  to  fill  her 
thoughts;  the  authors  of  his  sorrow  she  wished  as  far  as 
was  humanly  possible  to  root  out  from  her  mind  altogether. 
Resentment  would  do  no  good  to  anybody  and  only  hurt  her- 
self, and  since  she  knew  that  she  could  not  wholly  forgive, 
since  there  was  no  sign  of  sorrow  or  regret  on  their  parts, 
the  best  thing  she  could  cultivate  in  their  regard  was 
oblivion. 

She  went,  therefore,  first  to  the  smoking-room,  where 
there  hung  the  little  water-colour  sketch  that  Evelyn  had 
once  made  of  her ;  a  photograph  of  him  also  stood  there,  and 
this  she  took  with  her  also.  The  frames  were  her  own,  but 
she  took  the  pictures  out  of  each.  Then,  going  to  her  bed- 
room, she  unlocked  her  jewel-case  and  took  from  it  the  pearl 
brooch  he  had  given  her.  No  anger  was  in  her  mind;  and 
even  as  she  handled  those  dear  and  familiar  things,  she  de- 
tached it  from  what  she  was  doing.  Then  making  a  packet 
of  them,  she  sealed  and  directed  it  to  him.  There  was  no 
need  that  any  word  of  hers  should  go  with  it ;  indeed,  there 
was  no  word  she  could  say  to  him. 

But  though  she  had  resolved  not  to  think  about  either  of 
them,  that  was  one  of  those  resolutions  which  in  the  very 
nature  of  things  cannot  be  kept,  and  afterwards  when  this 
business  of  returning  his  gifts  was  over,  and  she  sat  down 
with  her  piece  of  needlework,  she  could  not  keep  her  mind 
off  them.  But  now,  so  far  from  vindictiveness  being  there, 
it  was  rather  pity,  pity  deep  and  sincere,  that  filled  it.  Terri- 
ble though  the  practical  result  had  been,  bitter  and  deadly 
as  was  the  blow  dealt  at  the  man  whom  she  loved  better  than 
anyone  else  in  the  world,  what  other  course  had  been  open  ? 
Madge  and  Evelyn  had  found  they  loved  each  other,  and  that 
being  so,  how  infinitely  more  wretched  must  any  attempt  to 
disregard  or  stifle  that  have  proved !  The  thought  of  the  girl 
as  Philip's  wife  secretly  loving  another  was  a  situation  which 
she  knew  well  was  far  more  terrible  than  this,  far  more  rot- 
ten, far  more  insecure.  There  the  foundation  of  their  lives 
would  be  founded  on  a  lie,  their  house  would  be  built  over  a 
volcano  which  might  break  out  and  overwhelm  with  fire  and 
burning  the  fabric  that  was  reared  upon  it.  At  the  best,  what 


190  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

happiness  could  there  be  in  it,  and  how  could  it  be  a  home 
in  any  true  sense  ?  And  since  they  two  loved,  what  essential 
good  was  served  by  their  waiting  to  join  themselves  to- 
gether ?  Convention  certainly  would  be  shocked  at  the  sud- 
denness of  it  all,  but  Mrs.  Home  found  as  she  thought  about 
it  that  she,  personally,  was  not.  For  what  was  Madge  to  do  ? 
Go  home  and  continue  to  live  with  her  mother  ?  She  herself 
knew  Lady  Ellington  fairly  well,  and  she  knew  that  no  girl 
could  possibly  stand  it. 

So  her  resolve  not  to  think  about  them  at  all  had  ended  in 
this,  that  she  thought  about  them  with  only  pity  for  what  in 
the  inscrutable  decrees  of  God  had,  so  to  speak,  been  forced 
on  them.  That  necessity  she  deplored  with  all  her  heart, 
for  it  was  pierced  as  it  had  never  been  pierced  before  with 
sorrow  for  her  son,  but  even  in  these  early  hours  of  her 
knowledge  of  the  tragedy,  she  could  not  blame  them.  Then, 
half-ashamed  of  her  infirmity  of  purpose,  she  went  quietly 
to  the  post-box,  and  took  out  the  package  she  had  just  done 
up,  and  instead  of  sending  it,  locked  it  up. 

She  did  not  see  Philip  again  till  dinner-time,  and  then  this 
ghastly  game  of  make-believe  that  nothing  was  wrong  began 
again.  She  saw  well  what  he  felt,  that  as  no  words  could 
possibly  ameliorate  the  situation,  it  was  best  that  no  words 
should  pass  concerning  it,  and  she  guessed  also  with  a 
woman's  intuition  that  drops  unerringly  on  to  the  right 
place,  even  as  a  bird  drops  on  to  a  twig,  that  any  expression 
of  pity  or  sympathy  were,  above  all,  what  he  could  not  stand. 
He  could  bear  no  hand,  however  gentle,  to  touch  the  wound, 
but  winced  at  even  the  thought  of  it.  So  they  spoke  jus>t  of 
all  those  things  except  one,  which  they  would  naturally  have 
spoken  about,  and  they  said  the  same  things  on  such  subjects 
as  they  would  naturally  have  said.  The  drought,  the  Japa- 
nese war,  the  irritating  particles  of  dust  from  wood-pave- 
ments, all  the  topics  of  the  day  were  there,  and  there  were  no 
silences,  not  even  any  racking  of  the  brain  on  the  part  of 
either  to  think  what  should  be  said  next.  That  dreadful  me- 
chanical engine  of  habit  was  in  full  work,  and  just  as  Philip 
would  have  maintained  normality  though  the  City  was  in  a 
depressed  and  depressing  state,  and  just  as  Mrs.  Home 
would  have  been  quite  herself  to  her  guests  though  some 
below-stairs  crisis  was  most  critical  between  domestics,  so 
now  when  the  crisis  was  such  that  nothing  could  have 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

touched  her  more  keenly,  it  was  easy,  but  dismal,  to  main- 
tain the  ordinary  forms  of  life.  Servants  certainly,  that  re- 
lentless barometer  of  local  disturbances,  saw  nothing  that 
night  which  indicated  trouble;  no  storm-cone  was  hoisted, 
the  gardeners,  too,  had  come  off  lightly,  and  Mr.  Philip  was 
pronounced  to  be  at  the  utmost  "  rather  silent  about  next 
week's  occurrences."  That  was  the  phrase  of  "  the  room,'' 
which  crystallised  any  vague  or  fluid  speech  that  might  find 
utterance.  "  Just  a  little  silent  " — so  well  the  prime  actors  hi 
the  dining-room  played  their  parts. 

Yet  yearning  was  on  one  side,  the  yearning  of  the  mother 
for  the  break-down — for  it  was  that  it  amounted  to — of  the 
son,  and  on  the  son's  side  was  a  harshness  which  the  mother 
could  not  yet  believe  existed.  But  his  implacable  speeches 
had  been  soberly  and  literally  true,  and  the  strength  of  his 
hate  was  proportionate  to  what  the  strength  of  his  love  had 
been.  There  was  no  denying  the  genuineness  of  that  dreadful 
alchemy ;  love  in  a  hard  nature  indeed  may  undergo  that  ter- 
rible transformation,  whereas  liking  can  scarcely  be  trans- 
muted into  anything  more  deadly  than  dislike,  while  it  is 
most  hard  of  all  for  mere  indifference  to  struggle  into  the 
ranks  of  the  more  potent  lords  of  the  human  soul.  It  is 
a  matter  of  indifference  or  at  most  of  reprisal,  what  are 
the  doings  of  those  who  are  indifferent  to  one.  Action 
for  damages  may  ensue,  but  hate  still  slumbers  in  its  cave. 
But  it  is  when  those  whom  a  man  loves  hurt  him  that  the 
hurt  festers  and  spreads  poison  through  the  soul.  Indeed, 
it  is  only  those  whom  such  a  man  loves  who  have  power  to 
hurt  him  at  all. 

After  dinner,  too,  the  daily  round  was  continued  in  all  its 
dismal  unreality.  Philip  even  asked,  an  old  and  quite  unin- 
teresting joke,  whether  he  might  smoke  in  the  drawing- 
room,  and  on  Mrs.  Home's  saying  "No!"  threatened  to  go 
to  the  stables.  It  was  never  a  good  joke,  or,  indeed,  any- 
thing approaching  it,  but  to-night  it  came  near  to  move  tears 
on  the  poor  lady's  part,  for  it  -vas  like  speaking  of  the  odd 
little  ways  of  some  loved  one  who  is  dead.  Then,  again,  in 
the  drawing-room  the  table  for  cards  was  placed  out,  with 
decorous  wax  candles  burning-  at  the  corners,  and  Mrs. 
Home  sat  in  her  usual  seat,  and  a?  usual  Philip  drew  a  chair 
sideways  near  her.  so  that  he  could  watch  without  seeming- 
to  watch.  And  his  mother  announced  Miss  Milligan,  with 


192  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

the  usual  futile  determination  not  to  cheat.  So  in  silence 
Miss  Milligan  pursued  her  abhorred  way ;  and  during  that 
silence  the  tears,  the  break-down  inevitable  for  all  her  brave 
resolves,  came  close  to  the  surface.  Mrs.  Home  already 
could  not  speak,  she  had  to  clench  her  teeth  to  prevent  tne 
sobs  coming.  Then  at  last  there  came  a  hitch,  she  cheated, 
and  Philip  saw  it. 

"  Black  nine,"  he  said ;  "  not  red  nine." 

Airs.  Home's  hands  were  already  trembling,  and  at  this 
they  failed,  and  the  cards  were  scattered  over  the  table. 

"  Oh,  Philip !"  she  cried,  "  I  can't  bear  it,  I  can't  bear  it. 
Oh,  my  darling !  put  your  head  on  my  lap  as  you  used  to  do 
when  you  were  a  little  boy  and  in  trouble,  and  let  me  see  if 
I  cannot  comfort  you." 

She  looked  up  at  him  with  tear-dimmed  eyes,  and  not  till 
then  did  she  fully  know  how  deep  the  iron  had  gone.  Not 
a  sign  of  relenting  or  softening  was  there.  He  got  up  and 
spoke  in  a  perfectly  hard,  dry  voice. 

"  Not  one  atom  can  you  comfort  me,"  he  said.  "  We  have 
both  to  bear  what  has  to  be  borne,  and  as  I  have  said,  it  is 
better  to  bear  in  silence.  I  think  now  I  had  better  go ;  I  have 
those  matters  to  arrange  to-night  which  I  spoke  to  you  of. 
Perhaps  you  would  tell  the  servants  that — that  everything 
will  go  on  just  as  usual  here." 

Mrs.  Home  saw  the  hopelessness  of  further  appeal  just 
now. 

"  Yes,  dear,  go  and  do  what  you  have  to,"  she  said.  "  I 
will  tell  them.  Will  you  come  back  to  read  prayers,  Philip  ?" 

"  No,"  said  he. 

Then  he  bent  and  kissed  her,  and  as  he  held  her  hands 
the  first  faint  sign  in  the  trembling  of  his  lip  showed  that  for 
her,  at  any  rate,  he  was  not  all  adamant. 

"  I  am  not  sorry  for  myself,"  he  said,  "  but  I  am  sorry  for 
you,  dear  mother,  that  you  cannot  possibly  help  me.  Break- 
fast as  usual  to-morrow  ?  Good  night." 


THIRTEENTH 


Y  Monday  morning  when  he  returned  to  town, 
Philip  had  quite  made  up  his  mind  that  all  thought 
of  travel  by  way  of  distraction  was  futile,  and  had 
determined  to  find  in  work,  the  hardest  and  most 
continuous,  a  succession  of  hours  of  forgetfulness,  so  far  as 
he  could  secure  it,  of  this  blow  that  had  fallen  on  him.  For- 
getfulness itself,  he  knew  well  he  could  not  hope  to  secure, 
but  by  hard  application  of  the  brain  to  work,  he  hoped  that 
for  this  hour  and  for  that  he  would  be  able  to  put  that  which 
had  so  stricken  and  embittered  him  on  a  second  and  more 
remote  plane  of  consciousness.  True,  at  any  relaxation,  at 
any  interval  in  which  his  brain  was  not  actively  employed, 
it  would  start  out  again  like  the  writing  on  the  wall ;  but  for 
the  working  hours  of  the  day,  and  these  he  determined  should 
be  long  and  fully  filled,  he  believed  he  could  to  some  extent 
crush  the  other  out  of  his  consciousness.  In  work,  at  any 
rate,  he  believed  his  best  chance  lay,  and  the  attempt,  though 
perhaps  desperate,  was  one  which  none  but  a  strong  man 
could  have  made. 

He  occupied  at  present  while  in  London  a  flat  in  Jermyn 
Street,  modest  in  dimensions,  but  containing  all  he  wanted. 
There  was  a  spare  room  there  which  his  mother  always  used 
on  her  rather  rare  visits  to  town,  but  otherwise  it  held  only 
the  necessary  accommodation  for  two  servants  and  himself. 
He  had  already  given  his  landlord  notice  that  he  was  going 
to  quit,  but  to-day  he  went  to  the  estate  office  to  ask  if  he 
could  renew  his  tenancy  since  his  bachelor  days  were  not  yet 
over.  All  this  was  horribly  uncomfortable ;  he  felt  that  the 
clerk  in  the  office  knew  what  had  happened,  and  would,  after 
his  departure,  talk  it  and  him  over  with  the  other  clerks,  and 
though  their  criticism  and  comments  could  not  possibly  mat- 
ter to  him,  he  felt  that  some  deformity,  some  malformation 
or  scar  of  his  own  body  was  being  publicly  shown  the  world, 
and  he  hated  the  world  for  looking  at  it.  Then  also  he  had 


194  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

to  say  that  he  should  not  require  the  house  for  which  he  was 
in  contract  in  Berkeley  Square,  to  complete  which  nothing 
really  remained  except  the  signing  of  the  lease.  It  was  all  a 
business  so  unexpectedly  disagreeable  that  he  wished  he  had 
conducted  it  by  letter. 

To-day  promised  to  be  very  busy;  he  was  to  have  dined 
that  night  with  Lady  Ellington,  but  that  engagement  was 
automatically  cancelled,  and  he  left  word  at  his  flat  that  he 
would  be  there  that  night,  and  would  dine  alone.  That  done, 
he  drove  straight  down  to  the  City,  where  he  expected  that 
there  would  be  awaiting  him  a  report  of  an  agent  of  his  with 
regard  to  certain  South  African  mining  properties  on  which 
he  held  an  extremely  large  option  which  he  must  take  up 
before  the  end  of  the  week,  when  it  expired.  He  had  not 
been  able  to  make  his  mind  up  about  it  hitherto,  and  had 
»wired  for  the  report,  putting  off  his  decision  until  the  last 
possible  minute. 

The  report  in  question  had  arrived,  and,  without  further 
delay,  he  proceeded  to  master  it.  The  problems  it  contained 
were  of  a  complicated  order ;  the  dip  and  depth  of  the  reef, 
the  assay  value  of  it,  the  cost  of  working,  the  reduction 
which  might  be  obtained  in  this  by  the  use  of  Chinese  labour, 
all  these  were  things  which  had  to  be  considered.  Should 
he  not  exercise  his  option,  the  right,  that  is,  of  buying  his 
shares  at  the  figure  agreed  on,  he  would  lose,  of  course,  what 
he  had  spent  in  purchasing  that  right.  It  was  by  a  careful 
study  of  this  rather  voluminous  report  on  the  property  that 
he  had  to  make  up  his  mind  whether  he  would  exercise  it  or 
not. 

Now  the  problems  of  finance,  that  extraordinary  and 
ubiquitous  game  in  which  the  most  acute  brains  in  the  world 
are  pitted  against  each  other  for  the  acquisition  of  those 
little  yellow  metal  counters,  which  in  this  present  world  are 
so  undeniably  potent  to  procure  for  their  owner  a  comfort- 
able journey  through  it,  had  at  all  times  an  immense  attrac- 
tion for  Philip,  and  he  found  that  even  to-day  they  were  no 
less  absorbing  than  they  had  ever  been.  He  found,  too,  that, 
in  spite  of  the  frightful  shock  that  he  had  undergone,  his 
reasoning  and  deductive  faculties  had  not  been  shaken  or 
dulled,  and  he  felt  himself  as  capable  as  ever  of  weighing 
the  evidence  which  should  decide  his  course.  The  report 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  195 

itself  was  fairly  satisfactory,  and  he  was  inclined  to  believe 
that  the  shares  which  he  could  call  up  were  worth  the  price, 
which  to-day  stood  steady  at  the  figure  which  he  would  have 
to  pay  for  them.  His  money,  which  ran  into  six  figures, 
would  perhaps  be  locked  up  for  a  time,  but  he  did  not  par- 
ticularly object  to  that.  On  the  other  hand,  supposing  he 
bought,  the  effect  on  the  market  would  certainly  be  to  send 
the  value  of  the  shares  up,  so  that  he  could  probably,  if  he 
wished,  clear  out  again,  realising  a  small  profit.  This  was 
all  plain  sailing  enough;  the  report  was  good  enough  to 
justify  his  exercising  his  option.  But  the  market  altogether, 
as  he  well  knew,  was,  in  consequence  of  the  Russo-Japanese 
war,  in  a  rather  excitable  and  nervous  state,  and  the  more 
difficult  problem  must  claim  his  attention — what  would  be 
the  effect  on  it  if  he  did  not  buy?  It  was  known,  of  course, 
that  his  option  was  a  considerable  one,  and  dealers  in  these 
shares  were  awaiting  any  news  as  to  his  movements  with 
some  anxiety. 

The  report  had  fallen  rustling  to  the  ground,  and  Philip 
sat  there  staring  in  front  of  him,  with  his  elbows  on  the 
table  and  eyes  fixed  intently  on  nothing.  Every  now  and 
then  some  clerk  came  in  with  a  paper  for  his  signature,  or  a 
letter  for  his  consideration ;  every  now  and  then  he  was  rung- 
up  on  the  telephone  that  stood  by  his  elbow.  But  he  had 
that  rarest  of  gifts,  a  mind  that  can  detach  itself  from  one 
thing  and  attach  itself  in  its  entirety  to  another,  and  he  gave 
his  whole  attention  to  these  interruptions  when  they  oc- 
curred, and  transferred  it  all  back  to  the  problem  he  was 
digging  at  when  he  had  dealt  with  them.  The  way  he 
pursued  was  narrow  and  winding,  but  step  by  step  he  traced 
it  out. 

It  took  him  not  less  than  an  hour  of  hard  thinking  to 
make  up  his  mind  definitely  on  the  point:  there  were  so 
many  things  to  consider,  for,  as  he  always  held,  there  was 
hardly  an  event  that  took  place  in  the  world  which  did  not 
have  its  definite  and  certain  effect  on  the  money-market ;  and 
the  sole  and  only  office  of  the  financier  was  to  be  able,  on  the 
basis  of  what  had  happened  before,  to  conjecture  what  was 
going  to  happen  now  (for  things  followed  an  invariable 
rule),  and  estimate  what  the  effect  of  his  conjectured  events 
would  be.  And  nothing  in  the  world  was  more  engrossing 
than  that;  there  was  no  bit  of  knowledge  a  man  might 


196  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

possess  concerning  human  nature,  however  fragmentary  and 
hard  to  fit  in,  that  did  not  have  its  place  in  the  puzzle  he 
had  to  put  together.  Above  all,  Philip  did  not  believe  in 
chance  in  these  affairs ;  it  might,  indeed,  be  chance  whether 
he  himself  correctly  estimated  how  future  events  would 
shape  themselves,  but  the  element  of  luck  here  was  only,  if 
one  ran  it  to  the  ground,  his  own  ignorance;  for  if  his 
knowledge  of  the  past  could  be  complete,  so  also  would  his 
knowledge  of  the  future  be,  for  in  the  City  of  all  places  is  it 
most  true  that  the  future  is  only  the  past  entered  through 
another  door. 

His  mind,  then,  was  made  up,  but  once  more  he  ran 
through  the  data  upon  which  his  conclusion  was  based. 
These  goldfields  of  Metiekull  on  which  he  held  an  option, 
were  a  company  that  had  aroused  a  good  deal  of  comment 
when  brought  out,  and  it  had  been  held  in  level-headed 
quarters  that  the  shares  which  had  been  run  up  to  4  had 
reached  that  figure  without  there  having  been  produced  any 
guarantee  that  they  were  worth  half  that.  But,  as  is  the 
inscrutable  way  of  the  Stock  Exchange,  they  had,  for  no 
particular  reason,  been  turned  into  a  gambling  counter,  and 
there  was  no  venture  which  enjoyed  a  freer  or  more  fluctuat- 
ing market.  Things,  however,  had  steadied  down  when  it  was 
known  that  Philip  Home  had  bought  this  option  of  30,000 
shares,  and  just  at  this  moment,  as  has  been  stated,  there 
was  considerable  interest  felt  in  the  question  of  whether  he 
would  exercise  it  or  not.  If  he  did  not,  it  meant  a  loss  to 
him  of  about  £7,000 ;  whereas  if  he  did,  it  might  be  regarded 
as  certain  that  the  shares,  since  gambling  in  them  was  just 
now,  like  bridge,  a  favourite  method  of  losing  money,  would 
enjoy  a  very  substantial  rise,  and,  as  usual,  it  was  highly 
likely  that  Philip  would  reap  a  profit  worth  reaping,  should 
'he  choose  to  sell  during  this. 

So  much,  of  course,  all  the  world  could  see,  but  Philip 
saw  a  little  further.  He  took  into  consideration  the  excit- 
able state  of  the  South  African  market,  the  uncertainty  with 
regard  to  the  Japanese  war  which  would  certainly  make 
French  speculators  nervous,  and  French  speculators,  as  he 
knew,  had  been  very  busy  over  the  goldfields  of  Metiekull. 
Then  came  in  the  question  of  the  report  which  he  had  been 
reading ;  on  the  whole  it  was  good,  and  his  sober  opinion  was 
that  the  shares  were  worth  buying  at  the  price.  Yet  he  pro- 


THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN  197 

posed  not  to  take  up  his  option,  but  to  lose  at  once  £7,000. 
But  he  would  also  let  it  be  freely  known  that  he  had  received 
a  detailed  report  from  his  agent  on  the  spot. 

He  decided,  therefore — so  the  market  would  say — to 
abandon  his  option  after  the  receipt  of  this  report.  What 
was  the  inference?  That  the  report  was  unfavourable*. 
Then  all  the  other  factors  he  had  been  considering  added 
their  weight  to  the  scale ;  there  was  a  nervous  market,  there 
was  likely  to  be  stringency  of  money,  there  was  the  vast 
hovering  thundercloud  of  war  in  the  East.  If  he  knew 
anything  about  the  ways  of  the  City,  it  was  an  absolute 
certainty  that  there  would  be  a  slump  in  Metiekull.  He 
would  let  it  slump;  he  would  even,  by  selling,  assist  it  to 
slump;  a  hundred  little  bears — Philip  detested  the  small 
operator — would  sell,  and  when  they  had  committed  them- 
selves pretty  deeply,  he  would  buy  not  only  the  original 
30,000  shares  of  his  option,  but  somewhere  near  twice  that 
number;  for  there  was  no  question  as  to  the  value  of  the 
property,  and  he  would  be  picking  up  his  shares  at  some- 
thing like  rubbish  price. 

The  chain  of  reasoning  was  complete,  he  took  his  elbows 
off  the  table,  and  turned  to  light  a  cigarette.  Then  sud- 
denly his  heart  sank,  he  felt  sick  and  empty,  for  the  concen- 
tration of  thought  was  relaxed,  and  from  a  thousand  spout- 
ing weir-gates  the  thought  from  which  he  had  obtained  an 
hour's  respite  flooded  his  whole  soul.  Forgetfulness  of  that  ? 
It  was  as  if  he  had  just  slept  in  his  chair  for  an  hour,  and 
awoke  again  in  full  consciousness  of  the  horror  of  life.  It 
was  no  slow  awakening,  it  was  a  stab  that  made  a  deep  and 
dreadful  wound  out  of  which  flowed  the  black  blood  of  his 
hatred  and  resentment,  not  against  those  two  alone,  but 
against  the  world.  To  this  hatred  he  gave  himself  up  with 
a  hideous  sort  of  luxury  in  the  overpowering  intensity  of  it. 
He  suffered  himself,  by  no  fault  of  his ;  well,  others  should 
suffer,  too,  and  if  by  his  manipulation  of  the  market,  which 
was  according  to  the  principles  which  governed  it  perfectly 
legitimate,  others  were  ruined,  it  was  not  his  fault  but  theirs 
for  competing  with  him. 

Then  a  thought  blacker  than  these,  because  it  was  more 
direct,  more  personally  full  of  revenge,  entered  his  mind. 
Surely  not  so  long  ago  someone  had  consulted  him  as  to  an 
investment.  Yes,  it  was  Evelyn — Evelyn,  in  a  sudden  burst 


0-98  THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

of  prudence — who  had  decided  not  to  buy  a  motor-car,  but 
to  put  away  a  big  cheque  that  had  just  been  paid  him.  Philip 
had  refused  to  give  him  advice  professionally,  since  he  was 
not  a  broker,  but  had  told  him  that  he  had  himself  bought 
a  large  option  in  Metiekull.  He  remembered  the  interview 
perfectly,  and  knew  that  he  had  recommended  Evelyn  not 
to  dabble,  since  he  did  not  know  the  game,  but  to  put  his 
money  into  something  safe.  What  he  had  eventually  done 
with  it  Philip  did  not  know.  But  for  a  week  afterwards  his 
studio  had  been  littered  with  financial  papers,  and  he  talked 
the  most  absurd  nonsense  about  giving  up  the  artistic  career 
and  taking  offices  in  the  City,  since  he  felt  sure  that  his  real 
chance  of  brilliant  achievement  lay  there. 

Now,  bitter  suffering  like  that  which  Philip  was  now 
undergoing  cannot  but  have  a  very  distinct  effect  on  the 
sufferer.  And  in  such  a  nature  as  his,  the  particular  kind 
of  suffering  he  had  to  bear  could  scarcely  have  had  any 
effect  but  that  of  the  worst.  His  circle  of  friends,  those  to 
whom  he  showed  all  that  was  best  in  him,  was  but  small, 
and  numbered  four  only.  By  two  of  these  he  had  been 
betrayed,  and  that  impulse  which  at  the  first  moment  of  his 
knowledge  did  just  flicker  within  him,  the  impulse  of  gen- 
erosity, of  taking  the  big  and  sky-high  line  of  which  for  the 
moment  he  had  been  capable  when  he  dismissed  the  motor 
three  days  ago  near  Evelyn's  studio,  had  been  crushed,  if 
not  out  of  life,  at  any  rate  into  impotence  and  unconscious- 
ness by  the  ingrained  hardness  of  his  nature  shown  to  the 
world  at  large.  That  hardness  covered  him  now  and  in- 
durated him;  he  could  feel  neither  pity  nor  softening  for 
any,  least  of  all  for  one  who  had  so  bitterly  injured  him. 
His  power  of  hurting,  it  is  true,  might  be  small  compared  to 
the  hurt  that  had  been  done  him,  but  such  as  it  was,  he  would 
use  it.  He  was  hurt  himself,  but  he  would  not  scream,  he 
would  just  strike  back  where  and  when  he  could. 

London  meantime  was  busy  with  its  thousand  tongues  in 
discussing  what  had  happened,  and,  as  was  to  be  expected, 
it  took  a  very  decided  line  over  it  all.  This  sort  of  thing 
was  really  impossible,  and  not  to  be  tolerated.  Why,  even 
the  bridesmaids  had  received  their  presents,  and  everybody's 
plans,  for  everybody  had  settled  to  go  to  the  wedding,  were 
absolutely  upset.  Besides,  the  whole  thing  was  an  insult 
hurled  at  the  sacred  image  of  Society,  a  bomb-shell  which 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  199 

had  exploded  in  the  very  middle  of  the  temple.  And  though 
Gladys  Ellington  had  only  one,  not  a  thousand  tongues,  she 
used  that  one  to  the  aforesaid  effect  so  continuously  that  it 
really  seemed  impossible  that  flesh  and  blood  could  stand 
the  wear  and  strain.  She  was  using  it  now  to  Lady  Tav- 
erner,  to  whom  she  always  told  things  in  confidence  when 
she  wanted  them  repeated.  Lady  Taverner,  it  may  be  re- 
marked, was  the  pink  and  butter-coloured  lady,  to  emphasize 
whose  charms  Evelyn  had  studied  purple  clematis. 

"  Of  course,  dear  Alice,"  she  was  saying,  "  I  can  say  these 
things  to  you,  because  I  know  you  won't  repeat  them,  and, 
of  course,  we  all  want  it  talked  about  as  little  as  possible. 
But  Madge  has  really  behaved  too  abominably ;  it's  all  very 
well  to  say  you  must  follow  the  dictates  of  your  own  heart, 
but  if  your  heart  tells  you  to  commit  really  an  indecency,  as 
this  is,  I  should  say  it  was  better  not  to  follow  it.  But 
Madge  is  so  odd:  it  is  only  a  few  weeks  ago  that  she  told 
me  how  devoted  she  was  to  Philip — esteem,  affection,  and 
all  that.  Well,  what  sort  of  esteem  and  affection  has  she 
shown  ?  My  dear,  three  days  before  the  wedding." 

Lady  Taverner  sighed. 

"  Of  course,  I  won't  talk  about  it,"  she  said,  "  but  I  shall 
never  speak  to  Madge  again.  And  my  portrait  was  being 
done  by  Mr.  Dundas,  which  makes  it  very  awkward.  Of 
course,  I  want  it  finished,  but  how  can  I  go  to  sit  to  him 
again  ?" 

This  was  a  new  light  which  Gladys  had  not  yet  con- 
sidered. 

"  Of  course,  he  has  ruined  himself,"  she  said  cheerfully. 
"  Nobody  will  go  to  be  painted  by  him  now.  And  consider 
his  relation  to  Philip!  Why,  he  was  his  best  friend.  I 
haven't  dared  to  see  Madge's  mother  yet,  but  I  understand 
she  is  mad  with  rage,  and  I'm  sure  I  don't  wonder.  And 
they  were  married,  I  hear,  on  Saturday,  and  have  left  Lon- 
don. How  can  people  be  such  fools !" 

This  last  remark  was  a  genuine  cri  du  cczur,  for  Gladys 
was  absolutely  unable  to  perceive  how  any  interior  impulse 
could  possibly  prove  too  strong  for  discretion,  for  savoir 
faire — she  was  fond  of  scraps  of  French — for  any  rending 
of  or  throwing  out  of  window  those  social  pads  and  cushions 
which  alone  ensure  a  passage  through  life  that  will  be  free 
from  succession  of  bumps  and  jars.  That  was  why  she  was 


200  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

almost  universally  considered  so  charming:  she  always  said 
the  pleasant  thing,  and  did  the  agreeable  one  (for  everybody 
had  to  assist  the  pads  and  cushions),  unless  she  was  quite 
safe  from  detection.  Then,  it  is  true,  the  sheathed  claws 
occasionally  popped  out,  when  it  was  quite  dark,  but  before 
the  return  of  light  they  were  always  sheathed  again,  and 
the  velvet  touch  was  in  evidence. 

"  Imagine  the  marriage !"  she  went  on.  "  A  sexton  and  a 
sextoness  were  probably  the  witnesses,  and  they  probably 
came — the  happy  pair,  I  mean — in  a  hansom  and  went  away 
in  a  four-wheeler.  Such  nonsense  to  wreck  your  life  like 
that.  And  a  wreck  is  a  crime ;  it  is  a  danger  to  other  ship- 
ping unless  it  is  blown  up." 

Now  what  Gladys  said  so  directly,  all  London  was  think- 
ing, if  not  with  the  same  precision,  at  any  rate  with  the  same 
general  trend.  There  had  been  a  violation  of  its  social 
codes,  flagrant  and  open,  and  for  the  time,  at  any  rate,  it 
was  disposed  to  visit  the  offence  with  the  full  severity  of  its 
displeasure.  As  Gladys  had  remarked :  "  How  could  they 
be  such  fools!"  and  the  children  of  this  world,  being  wiser 
in  their  generation  than  the  children  of  light,  are  the  first  to 
punish  folly.  And  it  is  very  foolish  to  openly  break  the 
rules  which  Society  has  laid  down  if  you  wish  to  continue 
to  occupy  your  usual  arm-chair  in  that  charming  club.  For 
the  rules  are  so  few,  and  so  very  easy  to  remember,  and 
Evelyn  and  Madge  had  quite  distinctly  broken  one  of  the 
most  elementary  of  them.  And  Society,  however  accommo- 
dating in  many  lines,  never  forgives,  at  once  anyhow,  any 
such  open  violation  of  its  laws  as  this.  But  just  at  present 
neither  of  the  sinners  cared  nearly  so  much  for  all  these  laws 
as  they  cared  for  a  single  moment  of  this  blue,  fresh-winded 
day. 

They  had  been  married,  as  Gladys  had  said,  on  a  Saturday, 
and  had  left  England  that  same  afternoon  to  spend  a  fort- 
night on  the  coast  of  Normandy,  and  there  at  this  moment 
they  were,  on  the  very  coast  itself,  with  the  blue,  crisp 
ripples  of  the  English  Channel  hissing  gently  on  the  sand. 
Evelyn  had  spent  most  of  the  morning  constructing  a  huge 
sand-castle  of  Gothic  design,  but  the  rising  tide  half  an  hour 
ago  had  driven  him  from  the  last  of  its  fortifications,  and  he 
was  now  sitting  on  the  sand  with  Madge  by  his  side.  All 
this  week  he  had  been  in  the  most  irresponsible,  irrepressible 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  201 

spirits,  which  any  thought  of  the  unhappiness  that  had  been 
caused  seemed  powerless  to  dull ;  any  suggestion  of  it  passed 
in  a  moment  like  breath  off  a  mirror.  With  the  huge  egotism 
of  his  nature  he  had  determined  quite  satisfactorily  to  him- 
self that  what  had  happened  was  inevitable.  He  knew  how 
ardent  was  his  own  love  for  Madge,  he  knew  it  was  returned, 
he  knew  too,  for  she  had  told  him  how  different  was  this  from 
the  quiet,  sober  affection  she  felt  for  Philip.  Her  marriage 
with  him  could  not  have  taken  place:  she  felt  that  herself, 
whereas  nothing  in  the  world  was  strong  enough  to  pull 
them  apart.  And  with  the  great  good  sense  that  so  often 
characterises  egotism,  Evelyn,  though  he  was  very  sorry  for 
Philip,  could  not  either  be  ashamed  of  himself,  or  on  the 
other  hand  be  sorry  for  Philip  long.  He  faded  from  his 
mind  almost  the  moment  he  thought  of  him.  He  could  not 
bring  his  mind  to  bear  on  Philip  when  Madge  was  with  him. 

He  had  been  wading  during  the  building  and  the  subse- 
quent occupation  of  the  Gothic  sand-castle,  and  his  feet  were 
still  bare,  and  his  flannel  trousers  rolled  up  to  his  knees. 
Also  a  dead  bee  had  been  washed  ashore  in  the  foam  of  the 
ripples,  and  search  must  be  made  for  a  suitable  coffin,  since 
burial  with  all  possible  honour  must  be  given  to  a  honey- 
maker  from  those  on  the  honey-moon.  A  pink  bivalve  shell 
was  eventually  discovered,  which  he  considered  worthy  of  con- 
taining the  honoured  corpse.  Its  grave  was  dug  above  high- 
water  mark,  a  mound  of  sand  in  pyramid  form  raised  over 
it,  and  the  sides  of  this  decorated  with  concentric  circles  of 
pebbles.  A  small  passage  constructed  of  shell,  and  flat  stones 
led  to  the  tomb-chamber  itself,  and  the  door  of  this  was  her- 
metically sealed.  In  front  a  small  stone  altar  was  raised, 
and  offerings  of  sea-weed  laid  on  it. 

"  And  so,"  said  Evelyn,  in  conclusion  of  the  short  pane- 
gyric which,  in  capacity  of  preacher  as  well  as  architect,  un- 
dertaker, and  mason,  he  pronounced  when  the  rites  were 
over,  "  we  commit  to  rest  this  follower  of  the  fragrant  life, 
who  made  his  living  among  the  flowers,  and  extracted  honey 
and  nothing  less  sweet  than  that  from  the  summer  of  his 
days.  My  brethren,  may  we  constantly  follow  this  example 
of 'the  perfect  life.  Amen.  Say  '  Amen,'  Madge." 

Madge  laughed. 

"  I  don't  think  I  ever  saw  anyone  so  ridiculous,"  she  saidj 
"  and  it  appears  you  can  go  on  being  ridiculous  all  the  time." 


202  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  All  the  time  I  am  happy,"  said  he. 

"  And  you're  happy  now  ?"  she  asked. 

"  Absolutely.  I  want  nothing  more.  All  this  week  I  could 
have  said  to  every  moment :  '  Stay,  thou  art  fair.'  And,  oh ! 
how  fair  you  are,  Madge.  Smile,  please — no,  not  the  sad 
smile  with  all  the  sorrows  of  the  world  behind  it." 

Madge  ceased  smiling  altogether. 

"  Oh,  Evelyn,  I  am  so  happy,  too !"  she  said.  "  But  I  can't 
forget  all  the  scaffolding,  as  it  were,  in  which  our  house  of 
love  was  built,  which  now  lies  scattered  about  in  bits." 

Evelyn  sat  up  quickly,  demolishing  the  altar  he  had  made 
with  such  care. 

"Ah!  don't  think  of  that,"  he  said.  "We  agreed  th?t 
what  has  happened  had  to  happen.  Now  pity  and  sorrow 
when  you  can't  help  in  any  way  seems  to  me  a  wasted  thing." 

"But  if  you  can't  help  pitying  and  being  sorry?''  she 
asked. 

Evelyn  gave  a  little  click  of  impatience. 

"  You  must  go  on  trying  till  you  do  help  it,"  he  said.  "  Of 
course,  if  one  dwells  on  the  matter,  one  is  sorry  for  Philip ; 
I  am  awfully  sorry  for  Philip  when  I  think  of  him.  I  hate 
the  idea  of  anybody  being  wounded  and  hurt  as  he  must  have 
been,  and  since  he  was  my  friend,  it  is  the  more  distressing. 
Only  it  is  an  effort  for  me  to  think  of  him  at  all.  I  can  only 
think  of  one  person,  and  of  one  thing — you  and  my  love  for 
you." 

This  time  Madge's  smile  was  more  satisfactory,  and  with 
his  bright  eager  eyes  he  looked  at  her  as  the  eagle  to  the  sun. 

"  Ah,  you  are  absolutely  adorable !"  he  cried. 


The  wind,  such  as  there  was  of  it,  had  veered  round  at 
the  time  of  high  tide,  and  blew  no  longer  off  the  sea,  but 
breathed  gently  from  the  land.  A  mile  away  on  the  right 
were  the  tall,  dun-coloured  houses  of  Paris-plage,  perched 
at  the  edge  of  the  sea,  and  the  sands  there  were  dotted  with 
the  costumes  of  the  bathers,  like  polychromatic  ants  who 
crawled  about  the  beach.  The  sea  itself  was  full  of  shifting 
greens  and  blues,  and  far  out  a  fleet  of  boats  like  grey- 
winged  gulls  hovered,  fishing.  Even  the  shrill  ecstasies  of 
the  bathers  of  Paris-plage,  whose  bathing  appeared  to  be  of 
a  partial  description,  but  who  made  up  for  that  by  dancing 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  203 

in  the   ripples,   and   splashing  each   other   with  inimitable 
French  gaiety,  were  inaudible  here ;  nothing  stirred  but  the 
light,  noiseless  wind,  warm  with  its  passage  over  the  sand- 
dunes,  and  faintly  aromatic  with  the  pungent  scent  of  the 
fir-woods  over  which  its  pleasant  path  had  lain.    All  things 
paused  in  this  hour  of  the  glory  of  the  fulfilled  noontide, 
that  seemed  equally  remote  from  both  past  and  future,  so 
splendid  and  so  real  was  the  one  present  moment.     If  there 
had  been  hurricane  in  the  morning,  it  was  forgotten  now; 
if  there  was  to  be  a  tempest  to-night,  it  would  be  time  to 
think  about  tempests  when  the  winds  began  to  blow,  and  it 
was  mere  futility  to  waste  a  moment  of  what  was  so  perfect 
in  contemplation,  whether  retrospective  or  anticipatory,  of 
what  had  been  or  yet  might  be.    There  was  just  the  hushed 
murmur  of  blue,  breaking  ripples,  their  sh-sh  as  they  were 
poured  out  on  to  the  golden  sand,  white  gulls  hung  in  the 
air,  white  boats  drifted  over  the  sea.    And  by  Madge's  side 
sat  her  lover,  the  man  whom  her  whole  nature  hailed  as  its 
complement,  its  completion.    Whatever  he  did,  whatever  he 
said,  she  felt  that  she  had  herself  dreamed  that  in  remote 
days.     Various  and  unexpected  as  were  his  moods,  they 
were  all  fiery;  the  sand-castle  as  it  first  stood  triumphant 
against  the  incoming  tide  had  been  to  him  a  monument  of 
more  than  national  import,  its  gradual  fall  a  tragedy  that 
beggared  Euripides.    The  bee,  too — if  he  had  been  burying 
her  he  could  not  have  shown  a  tenderer  interest.     But  she 
•was  not  so  sure  that  she  agreed  with  the  sermon  that  had 
been  preached  over  the  grave.     And  in  spite  of  the  com- 
pleteness of  the  noonday,  she  could  not  help  going  back  to  it. 
"  Evelyn,"  she  said.  "  were  you  really  serious  when  you 
said  that  the  honey-gatherer,  who  looked  only  for  what  was 
sweet,  was  the  example  of  our  lives?    Something  like  that 
you  said,  anyhow." 

But  he  continued  just  looking  at  her,  as  he  looked  when 
he  said :  "  You  are  adorable,"  with  eyes  gleaming  and 
mouth  a  little  open.  He  did  not  even  seem  to  hear  that  she 
had  asked  him  a  question.  But  she  repeated  it. 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  said.  "  How  am  I  to  know  whether 
I  am  serious  or  not?  I  suppose  one  says  a  hundred  stupid 
things  that  are  based  on  something  one  believes.  I  am  only 
serious  about  one  thing  in  the  world." 

She  did  not  affect  not  to  know  his  meaning. 


204  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  I  know — we  love  each  other,"  she  said.  "  But  we  have 
breakfast  and  lunch  just  the  same." 

He  looked  doubtful. 

"  Do  we  ?"  he  asked.    "  But  they  don't  matter  1" 

Suddenly  to  Madge  the  hush  of  the  noonday  and  the 
arrest  of  "  before  and  after  "  ceased.  It  was  as  if  she  had 
been  asleep  and  was  suddenly  awakened  from  a  dream  by  a 
hand  that  shook  her.  The  dream  was  still  there,  but  also, 
dimly,  there  was  the  wall-paper,  a  brass  knob  at  the  end  of 
the  bed,  a  counterpane. 

"  Ah !  with  all  my  heart  I  wish  they  didn't  matter.  I  wish 
nothing  mattered,  I  ask  for  nothing  better  than  to  sit  hert 
with  you,  to  go  on  living  as  we  have  lived  this  last  week 
But  the  time  must  come  when  we  shall  have  to  consider  what 
we  shall  do  next.  Are  we  going  back  to  London,  or  what  ?" 

"  It  is  August,"  said  he.    "  London  in  August " 

"  What  then  ?    Shall  we  stop  here  ?" 

Then  Evelyn  was  puerile. 

"  Of  course,  if  you  are  tired  of  this,"  he  began. 

But  she  let  the  puerilities  go  no  further. 

"  Oh,  don't  be  a  baby,"  she  said.  "  Ah,  such  a  dear  baby, 
I  grant  you !  But,  Evelyn,  it  is  life  we  are  living." 

Evelyn  stroked  his  chin  with  a  hugely  pompous  air. 

"  '  Life  is  real,'  "  he  said,  "  '  life  is  earnest.'  Now,  Madge, 
Poet  Longfellow  said  that,  therefore  he  must  be  right." 

"  And  so  Painter  Dundas  agrees  with  him  ?"  she  said. 

"  Oh,  certainly !  Life  is  undoubtedly  real  and  earnest,  but 
what  then  ?  Am  I  never  to  talk  nonsense  any  more  ?  Shall 
we  unbury  the  bee  ?  Dear  me,  the  unburial  of  the  bee.  How 
unspeakable  pathetic  and  terrible !  But  what  I  have  buried 
I  have  buried.  So  I  shall  draw  your  profile  in  the  sand  with 
one  finger  and  all  my  heart." 

But  she  still  remained  serious. 

"  Tell  me  when  you  have  finished,"  she  said. 

Evelyn  was  already  absorbed. 

"  With  a  helmet  on,"  he  remarked,  "  because  she  has  to 
meet  and  defeat  the  realities  of  life,  and  the  corners  of  her 
mouth  turned  down  because  life  is  earnest,  and  just  wink- 
ing with  the  other  eye ;  the  one  you  see,  in  fact,  because  she 
wants  to  signal  to  her  friend,  which  is  me,  that  it's  all  a  huge 
joke  really,  only  she  mustn't  talk  in  church." 

There  was  a  compelling  fascination  for  her  in  the  nimble 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  205 

finger  that  traced  a  big  outline  so  deftly  in  the  sand,  and 
since  she  was  upside  down  to  it,  where  she  sat,  it  followed 
that  she  got  up,  and  went  round  to  see  what  manner  of  a 
caricature  this  was.  Hopelessly  funny  she  found  it,  and 
hopelessly  like,  so  much  so  that  she  danced  a  war-dance  all 
over  the  outline,  and  sat  down  again  on  the  middle  of  her 
own  face. 

"  Now  attend !"  she  said  to  her  husband. 

"  After  you  have  ruined  the  picture  of  my  life,"  said  he. 
"  It  was  more  like  you  than  anything.  You  are  being  con- 
sumed with  moral  responsibility  for  me.  I  object  to  that, 
you  know ;  you  can  be  consumed  by  your  own  moral  respon- 
sibility, or  you  can  consume  it,  like  you  consume  your  own 
smoke,  but  mine  is  mine." 

"  Evelyn,  am  I  your  wife  ?"  she  asked. 

"  I  have  reason  to  believe  so.    I  was  told  so  in  church." 

"  Very  well — your  conscience  is  kept  in  the  kitchen ;  when 
I  go  to  order  dinner  I  look  at  it — I  order  more  if  we  are 
likely  to  run  short.  So  give  me  the  cheque,  please,  there  is 
a  bill  for  conscience  owing,  and  we  must  have  a  fresh  sup- 
ply." 

"  I  don't  understand  one  word,"  said  Evelyn,  rubbing  the 
sand  off  his  legs  preparatory  to  turning  his  trousers  down 
again.  "  Not  one  word.  Does  it  matter  ?" 

Madge's  face  grew  quite  grave  again ;  smiles  had  spurted 
as  with  explosions  from  eyes  and  mouth  when  she  saw  his 
sand-sketch  of  her,  but  these  had  ceased. 

"  Yes,  it  does  matter,"  she  said,  "  for  unless  you  propose 
that  we  should  remain  at  Le  Touquet  quite  indefinitely,  it 
will  be  necessary  some  day  to  become  definite.  I  suggest 
that  we  should  become  definite  now.  Everything,"  and  she 
dug  impatiently  in  the  sand  with  scooping  fingers — "  every- 
thing has  been  left  at  a  tag-end.  We  can't  forever  leave 
things  frayed  like  that ' 

Evelyn  interrupted  her. 

"  Oh,  I  know  so  well !"  he  exclaimed ;  "  the  metal  thing 
comes  off  the  end  of  a  lace,  and  you  have  to  push  it  through 
the  holes ;  a  little  piece  only  comes  through,  and  what  does 
not  come  through  gets  thicker  and  won't  follow.  Then  one 
has  to  take  it  out  and  begin  again." 

Madge  leaned  forward. 


206  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  Yes,  it  is  exactly  that,"  she  said.  "  That  has  happened 
to  us.  When  that  happens,  what  do  you  do?" 

"  I  take  olf  the  boot  in  question,"  said  Evelyn  gravely, 
"  and  ring  the  bell.  When  answered,  I  tell  them  to  take 
away  the  boot  and  put  in  another  lace.  That  is  done :  then 
I  put  the  boot  on.  But  I  don't  wrestle  with  laces  which  have 
not  tags.  You  are  wrestling,  you  know." 

For  the  second  time  this  morning  a  feeling  as  if  she  was 
dealing  with  a  child  seized  Madge.  The  child  was  a  very 
highly-developed  man,  too.  This  was  a  handicap  to  her;  a 
heavier  handicap  was  that  she  loved  him.  Even  now,  as  he 
sat  most  undignifiedly  wiping  the  sand  from  his  feet,  pre- 
paratory to  getting  his  socks  on  again,  she  felt  this  im- 
mensely. 

"  The  sand  will  be  rubbed  through  the  skin,  and  cause 
mortification,"  he  remarked  to  himself. 

Madge  turned  on  him  with  some  indignation. 

"  Ah,  can't  you  see,"  she  cried,  "  that  I  am  serious  ?  And 
you  talk  about  the  sand  between  your  toes !  You  are  rather 
trying." 

Evelyn  paused  in  his  toilet. 

"  Dearest,  I  am  sorry,"  he  said.  "  I  thought  we  were  still 
playing  the  fool !  But  we  are  not — you,  at  any  rate,  are  not. 
What  is  it  then  ?" 

This  completeness  of  surrender  was  in  itself  disarming, 
and  her  tone  was  gentle. 

"  It  is  just  this,"  she  said — "  that  you  and  I  are  lost  in  a 
golden  dream.  But  the  dream  can't  go  on  forever.  What 
are  we  to  do?  Shall  we  go  back  to  London?  Will  you  go 
on  painting  just  as  usual?  People,  perhaps,  will  be  rather 
horrid  to  us,  you  know." 

Everything  now,  even  to  him,  had  become  serious. 

"  Do  you  mind  that?"  he  asked. 

"  No,  of  course  not,  if  you  don't,"  she  said.  "  But  I  have 
been  wondering,  dear,  whether  if  by  your  marriage  with  me 
you  have  hurt  your  career." 

"  You  mean  that  pink  Jewesses  who  want  to  be  fashionable 
won't  come  to  ask  me  to  paint  their  portraits  any  more  ?"  he 
said. 

"  No,  not  that,  of  course.    What  does  that  matter  ?" 

Evelyn  finished  putting  his  shoes  and  socks  on. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  207 

"  Then,  really,  I  don't  understand  what  you  do  mean,"  he 
said,  "  by  my  carreer,  if  you  don't  refer  to  the  class  of  person 
who  thinks  it  a  sort  of  cachet  to  be  painted  by  me — though 
Heaven  knows  why  she  can  think  that.  What  are  we  talking 
about?  How  otherwise  can  my  career,  which  is  only  my 
sense  of  form  and  colour,  be  touched  ?" 

Madge's  eyes  dreamed  over  the  sea  for  a  little  at  this. 

"  No,  I  was  wrong,"  she  said.  "  Taken  like  that,  it  can't 
matter.  But  we  must  (though  I  was  wrong  there,  I  am 
right  here) — we  must  settle  what  we  are  going  to  do.  We 
must  go  back  some  time ;  you  must  begin  working  again." 

Evelyn  finished  tying  the  last  lace. 

"  Romney  painted  Lady  Hamilton  forty-three  times,"  he 
said.  "  I  could  paint  forty  Madges  of  the  last  hour.  You 
never  look  the  same  for  two  minutes  together,  and  I  could 
paint  all  of  you.  Let's  have  an  exhibition  next  spring  called 
*  Some  Aspects  of  the  Honourable  Mrs.  Dundas.  Artist — 
her  husband.' " 

"  They  would  all  come,"  said  Madge. 


There  was  no  more  discussion  on  this  present  occasion 
about  the  future.  Evelyn  being  again  properly  clothed,  they 
went  back  by  a  short  cut  across  the  sand-dunes  to  the  clear- 
ing in  the  forest  behind,  which  was  known  as  Le  Touquet. 
For  a  space  of  their  way,  after  they  had  got  out  of  the  pitiless 
sun  on  the  sand,  their  path  led  through  the  primeval  pine 
forest,  where  the  air  was  redolent  and  aromatic,  and  the 
footfall  went  softly  over  the  carpet  of  brown  needles.  Then 
other  growths  began,  the  white  poplar  of  France  shook 
tremulous  leaves  in  fear  of  the  wind  that  might  be  coming, 
young  oak-trees  stood  sturdy  and  defiant  where  poplars 
trembled,  and  away  from  the  pines  the  bare  earth  showed  a 
carpet  of  excellent  green.  Then,  as  they  approached  the 
hotel,  neat  white  boards  with  black  arrows  displayed  signs 
in  all  directions,  and  a  rustic  bridge  over  a  pond,  by  which 
stretched  a  green  sward  of  lawn  on  which  it  was  '  defended 
to  circulate/  led  to  the  gravel  sweep  in  front  of  the  hotel. 

A  broad  verandah  in  the  admirable  French  style  sheltered 
those  who  lunched  there  from  the  sun;  small  tables  were 
dotted  about  it,  and  from  the  glare  of  the  gravel  sweep  it 
was  refreshment  to  be  shielded  from  the  heat.  Their  table 


208  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

was  ready  spread  for  them,  and  the  obsequious  smile  of  the 
head-waiter  hailed  them. 

But  for  the  first  time  Madge  was  not  content.  Evelyn  still 
sat  opposite  her ;  all  was  as  it  had  been  during  the  last  week. 
Yet  when  he  said :  "  Oh,  how  delicious,  I  am  so  hungry !" 
she  felt  she  was  hungry,  too,  but  not  in  the  way  he  meant. 
She  was  hungry,  as  women  always  are  and  must  be,  for  the 
sense  of  largeness  in  the  man,  and  she  asked  herself,  but 
quenched  the  question  before  it  had  flamed,  if  she  had 
given  herself  to  just  a  boy.  Yet  how  she  loved  him !  She 
loved  even  his  airy  irresponsibility,  though  at  times,  as  this 
morning,  she  had  found  it  rather  trying.  She  had  lived  so 
much  in  a  world  that  schemed  and  planned,  and  was  for  ever 
wondering  what  the  effect  of  doing  this  or  avoiding  that 
would  be,  that  his  utter  want  of  calculation,  of  considering 
the  interpretation  that  might  be  placed  on  his  acts,  was  as 
refreshing  as  the  breath  of  cool  night  air  on  one  who  leaves 
the  crowded  ball-room.  And  for  very  shame  she  could  not 
go  on  just  now  pressing  him  to  make  decisions;  she  would 
return  to  that  again  to-morrow,  for  to-day  seemed  so  made 
for  him  and  his  huge  delight  in  all  that  was  sunny  and  honey- 
gathering.  To-morrow,  also,  she  would  have  to  mention 
another  question  that  demanded  consideration,  namely,  that 
of  money.  They  were  living  here,  with  their  big  sitting- 
room  and  the  motor-car  they  had  hired — and,  as  a  matter-of- 
fact,  did  not  use — on  a  scale  that  she  knew  must  be  beyond 
their  means ;  and  since  she  was  perfectly  certain  that  Evelyn 
had  never  given  a  thought  to  this  question  of  expense,  any 
more  than  the  price  of  the  wine  wjjich  he  chose  to  drink  con- 
cerned him,  it  was  clearly  time  to  remind  him  that  things 
had  to  be  paid  for.  He  had  loaded  her,  too,  with  presents ; 
she  felt  that  if  she  had  expressed  a  desire  for  the  moon,  he 
would  have  ordered  the  longest  ladder  that  the  world  had 
ever  seen  in  order,  anyhow,  to  make  preliminary  investiga- 
tions with  regard  to  the  possibility  of  securing  it.  He  ap- 
parently had  not  the  slightest  notion  of  the  value  of  money, 
no  ideas  of  his  were  connected  with  it,  and  though  this 
argued  a  certain  defective  apparatus  in  this  money-seeking 
world,  as  if  a  man  went  out  to  walk  in  a  place  full  of  re- 
volver-armed burglars  with  no  more  equipment  than  a  penny 
cane,  she  could  not  help  liking  his  insouciance.  Once  she 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  209 

taxed  him  with  his  imprudence,  and  he  had  told  her,  with 
great  indignation,  how  he  had  read  nothing  but  financial 
papers  for  a  whole  week  earlier  in  the  summer,  and  at  the 
end,  instead  of  spending  a  couple  of  thousand  pounds  in 
various  delightful  ways,  he  had  invested  it  in  some  South 
African  company  in  which — well,  a  man  who  was  very  acute 
in  such  matters  was  much  interested.  And  yet  she  called 
him  imprudent! 

After  lunch  they  strolled  across  to  the  lawn  where  circula- 
tion was  forbidden. 

"  We  won't  be  breaking  any  rules,"  said  he,  "  unless  the 
word  applies  to  the  currents  of  the  blood,  because  we  will 
sit  under  a  tree  and  probably  sleep.  I  can  think  of  nothing 
which  so  little  resembles  circulation  as  that." 

Letters  and  papers  had  arrived  during  lunch,  and  Evelyn 
gave  a  great  laugh  of  amusement  as  he  opened  one  from 
Lady  Tavener,  asking  if  he  would  be  in  London  during  Octo- 
ber, and  could  resume — this  was  diplomatic — the  sittings 
that  had  been  interrupted. 

"  Even  that  branch  of  my  career  hasn't  suffered,"  he  ob- 
served. 

There  was  nothing  more  of  epistolary  interest,  and  he 
opened  the  paper.  There,  too,  the  world  seemed  to  be  stand- 
ing still.  There  had  been  a  skirmish  between  Russian  and 
Japanese  outposts  at  a  place  called  something  like  Ping- 
pong,  fiscalitis  seemed  to  be  spreading  a  little,  but  otherwise 
news  was  meagre. 

"Is  there  nothing?"  asked  Madge,  when  he  had  read 
out  these  headings. 

"  No,  not  a  birth  or  death  even.  Oh,  by-the-way,  you 
called  me  imprudent  the  other  day!  Now  we'll  find  the 
money-market,  and  see  what  my  two  thousand  pounds  is 
worth.  Great  Scott,  what  names  thev  deal  in — Metiekull, 
that's  it." 

There  was  a  long  silence.  Then  Evelyn  laughed,  a  sudden 
little,  bitter  laugh,  which  was  new  to  Madge's  ears. 

"  Yes,  I  bought  them  at  4,"  he  said.  "  They  are  now  2. 
That  was  a  grand  piece  of  information  Philip  gave  me." 

He  got  up. 

"  Oh,  Evelyn,  how  horrible !"  she  cried.  "  Where  are  you 
going?" 

"  Just  to  telegraph  to  them  to  sell  out,"  he  said.    "  I  can't 


210  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

afford  to  lose  any  more.  I'll  be  back  in  a  minute.  And 
when  I  come  back,  dear,  please  don't  allude  to  this  again. 
It  is  unpleasant ;  and  that  is  an  excellent  reason  for  ceasing 
to  think  about  it.  In  fact,  it  is  the  best  reason." 


FOURTEENTH 


<s--«-^xT  was  perhaps  lucky  as  regards  the  future  of  Madge 
and  her  husband  that  this  debacle  had  taken  place 
B  so  near  to  the  end  of  the  season.  Many  people,  in- 
*~*  "^  deed,  had  waited  in  London  only  for  the  marriage, 
for  the  season  was  already  over,  and  for  the  last  three  days 
there  had  been  nothing  but  this  to  detain  them.  Genuine 
sympathy  was  at  first  felt  for  Philip,  but  it  very  soon  was 
known  that  he  was  at  his  office  again  every  day  and  all  day, 
worked  just  as  hard  if  not  harder  than  usual,  and  was  sup- 
posed, by  way  of  signalising  his  own  disappointment,  to 
have  made  some  great  coup  over  a  South  African  company, 
thereby  inflicting  a  quantity  of  very  smart  disappointments 
on  the  gentlemen  of  the  Stock  Exchange.  He  had  dealt 
these  blows  out  with  an  impartial  hand ;  first  there  had  been 
some  staggering  smacks  which  had  sent  the  bulls  flying  like 
ninepins,  while  the  bears  stood  round  and  grinned,  and  pro- 
fited by  the  experience  of  their  fraternal  enemies.  Then 
Philip,  it  seemed,  had  seen  them  grinning,  and  had  done  the 
same  for  them. 

In  other  words,  things  had  come  off  in  exactly  the  way  he 
had  anticipated.  The  knowledge  that  he  had  bought  a  very 
large  option  had  induced  many  operators  less  substantial 
than  he  to  buy  also,  and  the  sudden  news  that  he  had  re- 
ceived a  detailed  report  from  the  spot,  and  had  subsequently 
not  exercised  his  option,  landed  many  of  these  buyers  in 
awkward  places.  Then,  as  was  natural,  the  bears  saw  their 
opportunity,  sold  largely,  on  the  strength  of  the  inference 
that  Philip's  report  was  highly  unfavourable,  bringing  prices 
down  with  a  run.  Then,  with  the  same  suddenness  with 
which  he  had  decided  not  to  take  up  his  option,  he  bought  at 
this  very  much  lower  price  a  vastly  increased  number  of 
shares,  and  within  a  week  of  the  original  slump  Metiekull 
was  considerably  higher  than  it  had  ever  been.  The  £7,000 
he  had  forfeited  over  not  taking  up  his  option  was  but  a 


211 


212  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

bagatelle  to  his  subsequent  gains,  and  the  market  generally 
at  this  conclusion  remarked,  among  other  things  not  worth 
repeating,  that  there  was  a  good  deal  to  be  said  in  favour  of 
long  spoons ;  while  that  not  inconsiderable  part  of  more  west- 
erly London  which  is  always  burning  its  fingers  in  this  City 
fire  of  the  Stock  Exchange,  said  with  a  somewhat  cynical 
smile  that  since  Philip  could  still  hit  so  hard,  he  had  not,  per- 
haps, been  so  hard  hit  himself.  Perhaps,  in  fact,  Madge  had 
not  made  such  a  very  terrible  mistake,  after  all,  for  Mr.  Dun- 
das  was  undeniably  the  most  fascinating  person,  whereas 
Philip,  so  it  appeared,  did  not  let  the  most  dreadful  affair  of 
the  heart  interfere  in  the  slightest  with  the  stuffing  of  the 
money-box. 

But  in  this  they  utterly  mistook  him,  for  this  steady,  con- 
centrated application  to  work  was,  perhaps,  the  only  thing 
in  the  world  which  could  have  prevented  him  breaking  down 
or  losing  his  mental  balance  altogether.  Even  as  it  was,  it 
partook  only,  as  far  as  he  could  see,  of  the  nature  of  a  tem- 
porary alleviation,  for  in  the  very  nature  of  things  he  could 
not  go  on  working  like  this  indefinitely.  And  what  would 
happen  to  him  when  he  relaxed  he  could  not  imagine,  he  only 
knew  that  the  hours  when  he  was  not  at  the  office  were  like 
some  nightmare  repeated  and  again  repeated.  Nor  did  they 
lose,  at  present,  the  slightest  edge  of  the  intensity  of  their 
horror.  This  week  was  as  bad  as  last  week ;  last  week  was 
no  better  than  the  week  before,  all  through  this  hot  August 
when  he  remained  in  town,  not  leaving  it  even  for  his  usual 
week  end  on  the  river,  but  seeing  its  pavements  grow  hotter 
and  dustier  and  emptier  as  more  and  more  of  its  toiling 
crowds  escaped  for  a  week  or  two  to  the  sands  or  the  moors. 

The  worst  time  of  all  was  the  early  morning,  for  though 
he  usually  went  to  sleep  from  sheer  weariness  when  he  went 
to  bed,  he  began  to  wake  early,  while  still  Jermyn  Street 
was  dusky  and  dewy,  and  as  yet  the  sparrows  in  the  plane 
trees  opposite  his  window  had  not  begun  to  tune  up  for  the 
day.  Morning  by  morning  he  would  watch  "  the  casement 
slowly  grow  a  glimmering  square,"  or  if  it  was,  as  often, 
absolutely  unbearable  to  lie  in  bed,  he  would  get  up  and  go 
into  his  sitting-room,  where  the  wan  light  but  brought  back 
to  him  the  dreadful  hours  he  had  passed  there  the  evening 
before.  The  glass  from  which  he  had  drunk  stood  on  the 
little  table  by  the  sofa,  and  by  it  lay  the  unread  evening 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  213 

paper.  The  beloved  Reynolds  prints,  Mrs.  Carnac,  Lady 
Halliday,  Lady  Stanhope,  Lady  Crosbie,  all  first  impressions, 
smiled  meaninglessly  on  the  wall,  for  all  the  things  he  had 
loved  and  studied  had  lost  their  beauty,  and  were  blackened 
like  dahlias  in  the  first  autumn  frosts.  Sometimes  a  piece 
of  music  stood  on  the  piano,  from  which  he  had  played  a  bar 
or  two  the  night  before,  but  had  then  stopped,  for  it,  too, 
conveyed  nothing  to  him;  it  was  but  a  jangle  of  senseless 
chords.  Sometimes  in  these  dreadful  morning  hours  he 
would  doze  a  little  on  the  sofa,  but  not  often ;  and  once  he  had 
poured  out  into  the  glass  a  stiff  dose  of  whisky,  feeling  that 
even  an  alcohol-purchased  oblivion  would  be  better  than 
more  of  this  wakefulness.  But  he  had  the  sense  left  not  to 
take  to  that ;  if  he  did  that  to-day  he  would  do  if  to-morrow, 
and  if  he  admitted  the  legitimacy  of  such  relief,  he  knew  he 
would  find  less  and  less  reason  every  day  for  not  letting  him- 
self sink  in  that  slough.  Besides,  he  had  to  keep  himself 
clear-headed  and  alert  for  the  work  of  the  day. 

Two  passions,  to  analyse  a  little  further,  except  when  he 
was  at  work,  entirely  possessed  him,  one  his  passion  for 
Madge,  of  which  not  one  jot,  in  spite  of  what  had  happened, 
was  abated.  It  was  not,  nor  ever  had  been,  of  the  feverish 
or  demonstrative  sort,  it  did  not  flicker  or  flare,  it  burned 
steadily  with  a  flame  that  was  as  essential  a  part  of  his  life  as 
breathing  or  the  heart-beat.  And  the  other,  existing 
strangely  and  coincidently  with  it,  was  the  passion  of  hate — 
hatred  for  her,  hatred  for  Evelyn,  a  red  flame  which  shed  its 
light  on  all  else,  so  that  in  the  glare  of  it  he  hated  the  whole 
world.  Two  people  only  stood  outside  of  it — his  mother 
and  Tom  Merivale ;  for  these  he  did  not  feel  hate,  but  he  no 
longer  felt  love ;  he  was  incapable  of  feeling  that  any  longer 
except  for  Madge.  But  he  did  not  object  to  them,  he  thought 
of  them  without  resentment,  but  that  was  all. 

Then,  as  his  nerves  began  to  suffer  under  this  daily  tor- 
ture, the  hours  of  enforced  idleness  became  full  of  alarm. 
What  he  feared  he  did  not  know,  he  only  knew  that  he  was 
apprehensive  of  some  further  blow  that  might  be  dealt  him 
from  a  quarter  as  unexpected  as  that  from  which  this  had 
come.  Everything  had  been  so  utterly  serene  when  this  bolt 
from  the  blue  struck  him,  he  could  not  have  conjectured  it ; 
and  now  he  could  not  conjecture  what  he  expected  next. 

But  all  this  London  did  not  know :  it  only  knew  that  this 


214  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

very  keen  man  of  business  was  as  acute  as  ever,  to  judge  by 
the  Metiekull  episode,  and  began  to  reason  that  since  he  was 
so  callous  to  what  had  happened,  Madge  had  really  not  be- 
haved so  outrageously  as  had  been  supposed.  She  had 
found — this  was  the  more  human  and  kindly  view  induced 
by  the  cessation  of  the  late  London  hours,  and  the  substitu- 
tion of  a  great  deal  of  open  air  for  the  stifling  ballroom  of 
town — she  had  found  that  she  really  was  in  love  with  Mr. 
Dundas,  and  that  Philip  on  closer  acquaintance  was  what 
he  had  proved  himself  to  be,  business  man  first,  lover  after- 
wards. And  really  Mr.  Dundas's  pictures  this  year  had  been 
stupefyingly  clever.  They  made  one  just  gasp.  Surely  it 
would  be  silly  to  get  somebody  else  to  "  do  "  one  instead  of 
him,  just  because  Madge  had  found  out  her  mistake  in  time, 
and  he  had  assisted  at  the  correction  of  it.  He  was  certain 
to  have  heaps  of  orders  in  any  case,  so  it  would  be  just  as 
well  to  be  painted  by  him  as  soon  as  possible.  Of  course 
that  implied  that  one  accepted  his  marriage  in  a  sort  of 
way,  but,  after  all,  why  not?  Besides — here  the  world's 
tongue  just  tended  to  approach  the  cheek — it  would  be  a 
kindness  to  old  Lady  Ellington  to  smooth  things  over  as 
much  as  possible,  and  thaf  dear  little  thing,  Gladys,  whom 
everybody  liked  so  much,  would  be  so  pleased  to  find  that 
Madge  was  not  hardly  thought  of.  Yes,  quite  so,  and  has 
the  dressing-gong  sounded  already  ?  And  Tom  killed  a  stag, 
and  they  had  a  good  day  among  the  grouse,  and  Jack  killed 
a  salmon,  so  there  will  be  fish  for  dinner.  What  a  blessing ! 


One  of  these  mornings  which  saw  Philip  in  the  gloam- 
ing of  dawn  hearing  the  sparrows  beginning  their  chirruping 
in  the  plane-trees,  saw  Tom  Merivale  also,  not  only  hearing 
but  listening  to  the  twitter  of  half-awakened  birds  in  his 
garden.  He  had  slept  in  the  hammock  slung  in  the  pergola, 
and  after  the  coolness  of  the  clear  night  following  on  the 
intense  heat  of  the  day  before,  the  dew  had  been  heavy.  His 
blanket  was  shimmering  with  the  seed-pearls  of  the  mois- 
ture, his  hair  also  was  wet  with  it,  and  on  the  brick  of  the 
pergola  path  it  lay  like  the  condensation  of  the  breath  of  the 
spirit  of  woodland  itself.  The  cleanness  and  purity  of  this 
hour  of  dawn  was  a  thing  that  every  morning  more  as- 
tounded him.  Whether  a  clear  and  dove-coloured  sky 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  215 

brooded  as  now  overhead,  or  whether  morning  came 
wrapped  in  rain-clouds,  it  always  brought  to  one  who  slept 
with  the  sky  for  a  roof  a  sense  of  renewal  and  freshness 
which  it  was  impossible  to  get  used  to.  Everything  was 
rested  and  cleaned,  ready  to  begin  again  on  the  hundred 
joyful  businesses  of  day. 

Just  as  a  stone  falling  through  the  air  moves  with  a  speed 
that  is  accelerated  each  moment  by  double  the  acceleration 
of  the  last,  so  Merivale  felt  that  every  day  his  communion 
with  and  absorption  in  Nature  made  progress  out  of  all  pro- 
portion to.  what  he  had  achieved  before.  It  was  so  few 
months  ago  that  he  had  himself  wondered  at  the  mysterious 
and  silent  telepathy  that  ran  through  all  Nature,  the  tele- 
pathy that  warns  birds  and  beasts  of  coming  storm,  that 
makes  the  bats  wake  and  begin  their  eerie  flittings  even  at 
the  hour  when  sunset  is  brightest,  knowing  that  the  darkness 
is  imminent,  that  connects  man,  too,  as  he  had  proved,  if 
man  only  will  be  quiet  and  simple  instead  of  fretful  and 
complicated,  with  birds  and  beasts,  so  that  they  know  he  is 
their  brother  and  will  come  to  his  silent  call  to  them.  But  of 
late  that  had  become  such  a  commonplace  to  him  that  he  only 
wondered  how  it  could  ever  have  been  otherwise  than 
obvious.  He  remembered,  too,  how  so  few  weeks  ago  he 
had  for  the  first  time  heard  the  sound  of  the  glass  flute  in 
the  woods  above  Philip's  house  at  Pangbourne,  but  now  not 
a  day  passed,  often  not  an  hour,  in  which  that  unending 
melody,  the  eternal  and  joyful  hymn  of  Nature  and  of  life, 
was  not  audible  to  him.  Whether  what  he  heard  was  really 
a  phenomenon  external  to  himself  or  only  the  internal  ex- 
pression, so  to  speak,  of  those  thoughts  which  filled  his 
entire  consciousness,  both  waking  and  sleeping,  he  did  not 
care  to  ask  himself,  for  it  did  not  in  the  least  seem  to  him 
to  matter.  Wherever  that  melody  came  from,  whether  it 
was  born  in  his  own  brain  and  telegraphed  from  there  to  his 
ears,  or  whether  it  was  really  some  actual  setting  of  the  joy 
of  life  to  song,  external  to  him,  and  heard  just  as  a  railway 
whistle  or  the  bleat  of  a  sheep  is  heard  and  conveyed  from 
his  ears  to  his  brain,  he  did  not  even  wish  to  know,  for 
wherever  coined,  it  was  of  royal  minting,  the  secret  and  the 
voice  of  Life  itself  was  there. 

The  woods  of  Pangbourne — Philip.    He  had  heard  from 
Mrs.  Home  of  the  catastrophe,  and  in  answer  to  a  further 


216  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

letter  of  his  he  had  learned  that  Philip  remained  in  London 
slaving  all  day  at  the  office,  seeing  no  one  but  his  clerks, 
silent,  alone,  giving  no  sign  even  to  her.  This  letter  had 
come  only  last  night,  and  ended  with  an  imploring  cry  that 
if  Tom  thought  he  could  help  him  in  any  way,  his  mother 
besought  him  to  do  what  he  could.  Philip  had  been  down  to 
see  her  once  only,  immediately  after  his  engagement  was 
broken  off,  and  he  had  been  utterly  unlike  himself — hard, 
terrible,  unforgiving.  Could  Merivale  not  do  something? 
Philip  had  never  had  but  four  friends  in  the  world,  two  of 
these  had  turned  enemies  (Mrs.  Home  had  crossed  out  in  a 
thin,  neat  line  the  last  two  words  and  substituted  "  ceased 
to  be  friends"),  and  there  were  left  only  himself  and  she. 
And  she  had  tried,  and  could  do  nothing. 

Tom  Merivale  thought  over  all  this  as  the  twitter  of  birds 
grew  more  coherent  in  the  bushes,  passing  from  the  sound 
like  the  tuning-up  of  an  orchestra  into  actual  song.  The 
resemblance,  indeed,  was  curiously  complete,  for  after  the 
tuning-up  had  ceased,  while  it  was  still  very  faintly  light, 
there  was  a  period  of  silence  before  song  began,  just  such  a 
silence  as  ensued  when  the  strings  of  a  band  had  found  the 
four  perfect  fifths,  and  there  was  the  hush  and  pause  over 
singers  and  audience  alike  until  the  conductor  took  his  place. 
Day  was  the  conductor  here,  and  to-day  it  would  be  the 
sun  who  would  conduct  his  great  symphony  in  person  at 
dawn,  the  approach  of  which  to  Philip  but  meant  the  hard 
outlining  of  the  square  of  window,  but  to  Tom  all  the  joy 
of  another  day,  a  string  of  round  and  perfect  pearls  of  hours. 
The  East  was  already  in  the  secret,  for  high  above  the  spot 
where  dawn  would  break  rosy  fleeces  of  clouds  had  caught 
the  light,  while  nearer  to  the  horizon  the  nameless  green  of 
dawn,  that  lies  between  the  yellow  of  the  immediate  horizon 
itself  and  the  blue  of  the  zenith,  was  beginning  to  melt  into 
blue.  Then,  how  well  he  knew  it,  the  skeins  of  mist  along 
the  stream  below  would  dissolve,  the  tintless,  hueless,  dark- 
nesses of  clear  shadow  that  lay  beneath  the  trees  would 
grow  green  from  the  sun  striking  through  the  leaves.  These 
things  were  enough  to  fill  this  hour  with  ecstasy,  and  every 
hour  to  him  brought  its  own.  There  would  be  the  meal 
prepared  by  himself,  the  work  in  the  garden,  claiming  fel- 
lowship and  friendship  every  moment  with  the  green  things 
of  the  earth,  the  mid-day  bathe,  when  he  was  one  with  the 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  217 

imperishable  water,  the  long  communing  with  eyes  half- 
shut  on  the  sunny  heather,  where  even  the  stealthy  adder 
was  no  longer  a  thing  of  aversion,  and  then  for  the  sake  "  of 
his  sister,  the  body,"  as  the  old  Saint  said,  a  walk  that  might 
cover  twenty  miles  before  he  returned  at  dusk.  Oh,  how 
unutterably  good,  and  how  unutterably  better  each  day! 

A  wind  came  with  the  dawn  itself,  that  scattered  more  dew 
on  to  him  from  the  rose-sprays  overhead,  and  he  slid  out  of 
the  hammock  to  go  into  the  house  to  make  his  breakfast, 
stretching  himself  once  or  twice  before  he  went  in  to  feel  his 
muscles,  the  rigging  of  the  ship  of  the  body,  all  twang 
sound  and  taut.  Nor  did  it  seem  to  him  in  any  way  un- 
worthy that  even  this  physical  fitness  of  his  should  give 
him  such  joy:  it  would,  indeed,  have  been  a  disgrace  if  it 
had  been  otherwise.  For  all  the  sensations  and  functions 
of  life  were  on  one  plane,  and  whether  the  sweat  poured 
from  him  as  he  dug  the  garden,  or  his  teeth  crushed  a  nut- 
husk,  or  the  great  thigh-muscles  strained  as  he  mounted  a 
hill,  or  his  ear  was  ravished  with  the  fluting  of  a  bush- 
bowered  thrush,  it  was  all  one ;  each  was  a  function  of  life, 
and  the  sum  of  them  was  just  joy. 

But  Philip;  this  morning  he  could  not  get  Philip  out  of 
his  head,  for  detached  from  the  world  of  men  and  women 
as  he  was,  he  could  not  help  pitying  the  blind,  meaningless 
suffering  of  his  old  friend.  For  all  suffering  to  him  was 
meaningless,  he  did  not  in  himself  believe  that  any  good 
could  come  out  of  it  considered  merely  as  suffering:  much 
more  good,  that  is  to  say,  would  have  come  out  of  joy ;  this 
was  withheld  by  suffering,  a  thing  almost  criminal  to  his 
view.  But  he  could  realise,  and  did  that  all  that  Philip 
loved  best  had  gone  from  him ;  it  was  as  if  in  his  own  case 
the  sun  and  the  moon  had  been  plucked  from  the  sky,  or 
water  had  ceased  to  flow,  as  if  something  vital  in  the  scheme 
of  things  was  dead. 

It  seemed  to  him,  then,  with  his  mind  full  of  Philip,  very 
natural  that  there  should  be  a  letter  from  him  when  the  post 
came  in  that  morning.  It  ran  thus : 

DEAR  TOM, — I  had  rather  an  unpleasant  experience  yes- 
terday, for  suddenly  in  the  middle  of  the  morning  I  fainted 
dead  off.  It  seemed  sensible  to  see  a  doctor,  who  of  course 
said  the  usual  thing — overwork,  overworry,  go  and  rest 


218  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

completely  for  a  time.    He  was  a  sensible  man,  I've  known 
him  for  years,  and  so  I  have  decided  to  do  as  he  tells  me. 

Now  you  are  such  an  old  friend  that  I  trust  you  to  say 
"  No  "  quite  frankly  if  you  don't  want  me.  I  therefore  ask 
you  if  I  may  come  down  and  stay  with  you  a  bit.  I  thought 
of  going  home,  but  I  should  be  alone  there,  as  my  mother 
is  away  just  now,  or  on  the  point  of  going,  and  I  don't  want 
to  bring  her  back,  and  I  really  think  I  should  go  crazy  if  I 
was  alone.  You  seem  to  have  found  the  secret  of  happiness, 
and  perhaps  it  might  do  me  good  to  watch  you.  All  this  is 
absolutely  subject  to  your  saying  "  No  "  quite  frankly.  Just 
send  it  or  the  affirmative  by  telegram,  will  you,  and  I  will 
arrive  or  not  arrive  this  evening.  But  I  warn  you  I  am  not 
a  cheerful  companion. — Yours,  PHILIP  HOME. 

For  any  sake  don't  say  a  word  or  give  a  look  of  pity  or 
sympathy.  I  shall  bring  a  servant — may  I  ? — who  will  look 
after  me.  I  don't  want  to  give  you  trouble,  and  I  intend  to 
take  none  myself.  Mind,  I  trust  you  to  telegraph  "  No  " 
quite  simply  if  you  don't  want  me.  • 

There  was  only  one  reply  possible  to  this,  and,  indeed, 
Merivale  had  no  inclination  to  give  any  other.  Of  course 
Philip  was  welcome ;  he  would  very  likely  have  proposed  this 
himself  had  not  this  letter  come  so  opportunely,  and  the 
telegram  in  reply  was  genuinely  cordial.  Poor  old  Philip, 
who  used  to  be  so  happy  in  the  way  in  which  probably  a 
locomotive  engine  is  happy,  groomed  and  cared  for,  and  only 
required  to  do  exactly  that  which  it  loves  doing,  namely, 
being  strong  and  efficient,  and  exercising  its  strength  and 
speed.  Yet  though  Tom's  welcome  of  him  was  so  genuine, 
he  shrank  inwardly,  though  he  did  not  confess  this  even  to 
himself,  from  what  lay  before  him,  for  he  hated  misery  and 
unhappiness — hated  the  sight  or  proximity  of  it,  he  even 
thought  that  it  was  bad  for  anybody  to  see  it,  but  if  on  this 
point  his  attitude  was  inconsistent  with  the  warmth  of  his 
telegram,  the  inconsistency  was  wholly  human  and  amiable. 

On  the  other  hand,  though  he  was  by  no  means  of  a 
proselytising  nature,  there  was  here,  almost  forced  upon 
him,  a  fine  test  case.  He  believed  himself  very  strongly  in 
the  infectious  character  of  human  emotions ;  fear  seemed  to 
him  more  catching  than  the  smallpox,  and  worry  ran  through 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  219 

a  household  even  as  does  an  epidemic  of  influenza.  And  if 
this  which  he  so  profoundly  believed  was  true,  that  truth 
must  hold  also  about  the  opposite  of  all  these  bad  things; 
they,  too,  must  be  infectious  also,  unless  one  chose  to  draw 
the  unthinkable  conclusion  that  evil  was  contagious,  whereas 
good  was  not  communicable  by  the  same  processes.  That 
could  not  be,  the  spiritual  microbes  must,  as  far  as  theory 
or  deduction  could  be  trusted  to  supply  an  almost  certain 
analogy,  correspond  to  the  microbes  of  the  material  world; 
there  must  in  fact  be  in  the  spiritual  world,  if  these  microbes 
of  suffering  and  misery  were  there,  much  vaster  armies  of 
microbes  that  produced  in  man  all  the  things  that  made  life 
worth  living;  battalions  of  happiness-germs  must  be  there, 
of  germs  that  were  forever  spreading  and  swarming  in 
their  ceaseless  activity  of  building-up  and  regenerating  man, 
of  battling  with  the  other  legions  whose  work  was  to  destroy 
and  depress  and  kill.  And  if  there  was  anything  in  his  belief 
— a  belief  on  which  he  would  gladly  have  staked  his  life — 
that  joy,  health,  life  were  ever  gaining  ground  and  triumph- 
ing over  their  lethal  foes,  then  it  followed  that  the  germs  of 
all  things  that  were  good  were  more  potent  than  those  that 
were  evil  if  their  armies  were  mobolised. 

How  mysterious  and  how  profoundly  true  this  transfer- 
ence of  emotion  was,  or,  in  terms  of  the  present  analogy, 
these  invasions  of  spiritual  microbes !  For  what  caused 
panic  to  spread  through  a  crowd?  Not  danger  itself,  but 
fear,  fear  which  ran  like  an  electric  current  through  the 
ranks  of  its  quivering  victims.  Serenity,  therefore,  must  be 
equally  contagious,  and  if  one  could  isolate  one  of  those  fear- 
ridden  folk  for  a  moment  in  a  ring  of  men  who  were  not 
afraid,  it  could  not  be  doubted  that  their  fearlessness  would 
triumph.  No  reassuring  word  or  gesture  need  be  spoken 
or  made,  the  very  fact  of  the  atmosphere  of  calm  must  in- 
evitably quiet  the  panic-stricken.  Worry,  too,  would  stifle 
if  isolated  in  serenity,  just  as  serenity  would  vanish  if  the 
hosts  of  its  enemy  hemmed  it  in.  And  here,  to  take  the  case 
in  point,  was  Philip,  possessed  and  infected  by  the  poisonous 
microbes  of  unhappiness,  which  blackened  his  soul  and  dark- 
ened the  sun  for  him.  What  was  the  remedy?  Not,  as  he 
had  been  trying  to  do,  to  drug  himself  into  unconsciousness 
over  work,  while  they  continued  their  ravages  unchecked 
and  unchallenged,  but  to  steep  himself  as  in  some  antiseptic 


220  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

bath  in  an  atmosphere  that  was  charged  with  their  bitterest 
foes.  It  was  happiness,  the  atmosphere  of  happiness,  that 
alone  could  combat  his  disease.  And  of  the  eventual  result 
of  that  treatment  Merivale  did  not  entertain  the  slightest 
doubt;  there  would,  of  course,  be  war  between  happiness 
and  the  misery  of  his  friend,  but  be  felt  within  himself  that 
it  was  impossible  that  Philip's  misery  could  be  so  strong  as 
the  armies  on  his  own  side.  Think  of  the  allies,  too,  that  sur- 
rounded him:  his  light-armed  skirmishers,  the  birds  and 
bees,  with  their  staccato  artillery  of  joy  forever  playing 
on  the  object  of  their  detestation ;  the  huge  guns  of  the 
great  beech  forest  forever  pouring  their  sonorous  dis- 
charge on  to  the  enemy ;  the  flying  cavalry  of  the  river,  the 
heather-fragrant  wind  which  encompassed  and  outflanked 
him  in  each  direction. 

Thus  though,  as  has  been  said,  his  first  impulse  was  one 
of  shrinking  from  this  proximity  to  what  was  unhappy  and 
suffering,  how  splendid  a  demonstration  of  all  that  on  which 
he  so  largely  based  his  theory  of  life  was  here  offered  him. 
He  did  not  seek  after  a  sign,  no  demonstration  could  deepen 
his  belief,  yet  he  rejoiced  that  a  sign  was  offered  him,  even 
as  one  who  utterly  believes  in  the  omnipotence  of  God  may 
yet  look  on  the  shining  of  the  starry-kirtled  night,  and  glow 
at  the  reminder  he  is  given  of  what  he  believes.  Well  he 
knows  the  glory  of  God,  but  it  does  his  heart  good  to 
behold  it. 

The  work  of  the  house  took  him,  as  a  rule,  but  an  hour 
or  so  to  get  through  every  morning;  but  to-day  there  were 
further  preparations  to  be  made  for  his  friend's  arrival; 
linen  had  to  be  brought  out  for  his  bed,  water  to  be  fetched 
for  his  jug,  and  his  room  to  be  dusted  and  made  ready.  But 
these  menial  occupations  seemed  to  Merivale  to  be  in  no  way 
mean ;  nothing  that  was  necessary  for  the  ordinary  simple 
needs  of  life  could  possibly  be  derogatory  for  the  wisest  or 
busiest  or  wealthiest  of  mankind  to  perform  for  himself, 
though  to  pass  a  lifetime  in  performing  them  for  others  was 
a  mean  matter  both  for  employer  and  employed.  But  such 
things  were  not  to  him  even  tedious,  any  more  than  breath- 
ing or  washing  were  tedious,  and  to  find  them  tedious  but 
meant  that  one  was  out  of  tune  with  the  great  symphony  of 
life.  Everyone,  so  ran  his  theory,  ought  ideally  to  be  so 
simple  in  his  needs  that  he  could  minister  to  his  own  necessi- 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  221 

ties,  without  any  sense  that  his  time  was  wasted ;  one  washed 
one's  hands,  and  brushed  the  hair.  For  this  was  part  of  the 
true  simplification  of  life — to  need  but  little,  and  provide  that 
little  oneself.  Yet  inasmuch  as  most  of  the  world  did  not 
yet  take  his  view  (and  Philip  was  one  of  them),  he  was  ac- 
customed to  hire  help,  and  intended  to  do  so  now,  for  a 
friend's  visit. 

He  moved  quickly  and  deftly  enough  about  his  work; 
pausing  to  think  for  a  moment  as  to  the  making  of  the  bed, 
for  all  this  summer  he  had  scarcely  once  slept  in  one,  while 
in  winter  a  mattress  and  a  rug  comprised  his  own  needs. 
Then  the  work  of  dusting  brought  him  to  the  dressing- 
table,  and  for  a  moment  he  looked  at  himself  in  the  glass 
with  a  sort  of  pang  of  delight,  though  in  his  delight  there 
was  neither  self-consciousness  nor  vanity  that  this  was  he. 
For  he  was  now  several  years  past  thirty,  a  time  of  life  when 
on  every  face  there  begin  to  appear  the  marks  of  years ;  but 
from  the  glass  there  looked  back  into  his  eyes  the  face  of  a 
youth  just  standing  on  the  threshold  of  manhood.  The 
strength  of  manhood  was  there,  but  it  was  a  strength  in  which 
the  electric  vigour  of  boyhood  still  quivered  like  a  steel 
spring ;  not  a  sign  of  slack  or  wrinkled  skin  appeared  there, 
and  his  hair,  with  its  close-cropped  curls,  was  thick  and  shin- 
ing with  health.  But  looking  at  this  image  of  perfect  and 
vigorous  youth,  he  thought,  after  the  first  inevitable  delight 
in  the  knowledge  that  this  was  he,  not  at  all  of  himself,  only 
of  the  fact  that  to  any  who  lived  his  life  this  must  be  the 
certain  and  logical  consequence.  For  the  body  was  but  the 
visible  sign  of  the  spirit:  it  was  the  soul  of  man  that  made 
his  body,  as  a  snail  its  shell ;  it  was  worry  and  discontent 
assuredly  that  drew  lines  and  wrinkles  on  the  face  and 
brought  fatigue  and  sloth  to  the  muscles,  not  the  passage  of 
the  years ;  it  was  just  as  surely  serenity  and  the  passionate 
acceptation  and  absorption  of  the  joy  of  life  that  made  a 
man  young,  and  would  keep  him  so  body  and  soul  alike. 

But  never  before  had  he  so  fully  realised  this  change  that 
had  come  to  him,  and  when,  after  his  work  in  the  house  was 
over,  he  walked  into  Brockenhurst  to  engage  a  servant  for 
the  cooking  which  Philip's  visit  would  involve,  he  found 
himself  wondering  with  a  more  than  usually  vivid  curiosity 
to  what  further  knowledge  and  illumination  his  undeviating 
quest  should  lead  him.  For  he  felt  he  was  getting  nearer 


222  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

every  day,  and  very  quickly  nearer  to  the  full  realisation  of 
his  creed,  namely,  that  all  life  was  indivisibly  one,  and  that 
the  purport  of  all  life  was  joy.  And  when  his  knowledge  of 
this  was  made  perfect,  how  would  the  revelation  come,  and 
what  would  be  the  effect?  Would  life  eternal  lived  here 
and  now  be  his,  or  would  that  light  be  too  great  for  him  to 
bear,  so  that  this  tabernacle  of  flesh  and  blood,  hereditarily 
weakened  by  centuries  of  sin  and  shame,  could  not  stand  it? 
Was  it  life  or  seeming  death  that  awaited  him?  He  scarcely 
cared. 


The  tree  that  had  been  struck  by  lightning  at  the  end  of 
the  garden  he  had  felled  soon  after,  and  part  of  his  daily 
work  now  was  to  cut  up  the  branches  into  faggots  and  sticks 
of  firewood  for  the  winter.  That  dreadful  stroke  from  the 
skies  which  had  dealt  death  to  this  beautiful  tree  in  the  prime 
of  its  strength  and  luxuriance  of  its  summer  had  often 
seemed  to  Merivale  to  involve  a  difficult  question,  for  it  was 
intimately  bound  up  with  all  those  things  on  which  he  had 
deliberately  turned  his  back.  Death  did  exist  in  the  world, 
and  though,  as  he  had  once  said  to  Evelyn,  out  of  death 
invariably  came  life,  yet  the  fact  of  death  was  there,  just  as 
beyond  all  possibility  of  denial,  pain  and  disease  and  sorrow 
were  in  the  world  also.  These,  however,  were  largely  of 
man's  making,  yet  here,  in  the  case  of  this  poor  stricken  tree, 
it  was  Nature  herself  who  deliberately  attacked  and  slew 
part  of  herself.  One  animal,  it  is  true,  preyed  on  another, 
and  by  its  death  sustained  its  own  life:  that  was  far  easier 
to  understand.  But  there  was  something  senseless  and 
brutal  in  the  fact  of  this  weapon  of  the  storm,  a  thing  as 
inanimate  as  a  rifle-bullet,  striking  at  life.  It  was  wanton  de- 
struction. Nothing  came  of  it  (and  here  he  smiled,  though 
not  believing  he  had  guessed  the  riddle),  except  firewood 
for  him. 

The  morning  was  intensely  hot,  and  as  he  worked  hatless 
under  the  blaze  of  the  sun,  the  wholesome  sweat  of  toil 
poured  from  him.  How  good  that  was ;  how  good,  too,  to 
feel  the  strong  resistance  of  the  wood  against  the  blade  of 
his  axe,  to  feel  the  sinews  of  his  arms  alternately  tighten 
and  slacken  themselves  in  the  swiping  strokes,  to  stand 
straight  up  a  moment  to  rest  his  back,  and  wipe  the  moisture 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  223 

from  his  face  and  draw  in  two  or  three  long,  satisfying 
breaths  of  summer  air.  It  was  as  if  the  song  of  the  birds, 
too,  entered  into  his  very  lungs,  and  the  hum  of  the  bees, 
and  the  murmur  of  the  forest,  which  was  beginning  to  be 
hushed  a  little  at  the  hour  when  even  the  cicala  sleeps.  One 
thing  alone  would  not  be  hushed,  and  that  the  liquid  voice 
of  the  river,  in  which  he  would  soon  be  plunged.  No  length 
of  drought  in  this  wonderful  year  seemed  to  diminish  the 
wealth  of  its  outpouring;  it  was  as  high  between  its  fern- 
fringed  banks  now  as  it  had  been  in  April.  But  first  there 
was  the  carrying  of  the  aromatic,  fresh-cut  logs  to  the  house 
to  be  done,  and  he  almost  regretted  how  near  completion 
was  the  stack  that  filled  the  wood-shed,  for  there  was  some- 
thing about  the  hardness  of  this  particular  toil  that  was  inti- 
mately delightful.  It  required  the  exercise  of  strength  and 
vigour,  the  full  use  of  supple  and  well-hardened  muscles; 
it  was  very  typical  of  the  splendid  struggle  for  life  in  which 
the  struggle  itself,  the  fact  of  work,  was  a  thing  ecstatic. 
He  had  cut  more  than  usual  this  morning,  and  it  was  with 
a  boyish  sense  of  playing  some  game  against  a  rigid  and 
inflexible  opponent  that  he  determined  not  to  make  two 
journeys  of  it,  but  carry  all  he  had  cut  in  one.  And  under- 
neath this  staggering  burden  which  he  loved  he  toiled  to  the 
wood-shed. 


Merivale  had  just  come  up  from  his  bathe  in  the  evening- 
when  Philip  arrrived,  and  he  met  him  halfway  up  the  garden. 
That  extraordinary  change  which  he  had  himself  seen  in  the 
glass  that  morning  struck  his  friend,  too. 

"  It  was  awfully  good  of  you  to  let  me  come,  Tom,"  he 
said.  "  And  what  has  been  happening  to  you  ?  If  I  had  not 
known  you  ten  years  ago,  I  should  scarcely  have  recognised 
you  now." 

Tom  laughed. 

"  And  in  ten  days  you  won't  recognise  yourself,"  he  said. 
"  You  look  pulled  down,  and  no  wonder,  if  you've  been  work- 
ing in  London  all  August.  Anyhow,  this  isn't  the  least  like 
London,  and  you  are  going  to  do  no  work.  You  are  going 
to  sit  in  the  garden,  and  go  for  immense  slow  walks,  and 
listen  to  my  practically  incessant  and  wholly  fatuous  conver- 
sation." 


224  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

But  it  was  difficult  for  him  to  conceal  the  shock  that 
Philip's  appearance  gave  him.  He  looked  so  horribly  tired 
and  so  old.  The  suffering  of  this  last  month  had  made  him 
haggard  and  heavy-eyed,  and  what  was  worse,  the  hatred 
that  had  been  his  soul's  guest  had  made  his  face  hard  and 
bitter,  and  yet  for  all  the  hardness  it  was  strangely  en- 
feebled: it  had  lost  the  look  of  strength  and  life  that  had 
always  been  so  characteristic  of  it.  The  vital  principle  had 
been  withdrawn  from  it;  all  that  it  expressed  was  lethal, 
negative. 

Philip's  weary  eyes  looked  round  on  the  garden  and  the 
low,  thatched  bouse  where  dinner  was  already  being  laid  in 
the  verandah. 

"  So  this  is  the  Hermitage,"  he  said.  "  Dear  God,  you 
have  found  peace." 

Then  he  broke  off  suddenly,  and  began  again  in  a  differ- 
ent voice,  a  voice  that  was  like  his  face,  bitter  and  hard  and 
old. 

"  Yes,  I've  been  overworking,"  he  said,  "  and  as  I  told 
you,  yesterday  I  suddenly  collapsed.  I  think  my  work  has 
got  on  my  brain  too  much ;  I  didn't  sleep  well.  London  was 
dreadfully  hot  and  stuffy,  too.  But  I've  made  a  pot  of  money 
this  month.  Those  fools  on  the  Stock  Exchange  say  that 
August  is  a  slack  month.  Of  course  it  is  if  you  are  slack. 
But  certainly  from  a  business  point  of  view  I've  had  an  all- 
round  time.  I  brought  some  of  them  back,  too,  from  their 
deer-forests  and  fishings  in  double-quick  time.  And  they 
were  mostly  too  late  even  then.  Good  joke,  too,  my  going 
off  suddenly  like  this,  and  leaving  them  grilling  in  London." 

Merivale  could  not  quite  let  this  pass;  besides,  he  must 
answer  somehow.  He  laughed. 

"  I  don't  altogether  agree  with  your  idea  of  humour,"  he 
said.  "  Was  it  really— -from  a  humorous  point  of  view — 
worth  while  ?" 

Philip's  face  did  not  relax. 

"  It  was  from  a  business  point  of  view,"  he  said. 

Then  his  gardener's  eye  was  suddenly  arrested  by  a  perle 
des  jardins  that  was  ramping  beyond  all  bounds. 

"  I  used  to  know  about  roses,"  he  said,  "  and  I'll  cut  that 
back  for  you  to-morrow.  You  are  not  getting  half  the  roses 
x>ut  of  it." 


THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN  225 

"  I  know,  but  it's  enjoying  itself  so  enormously,"  said 
Merivale. 

Philip  considered  this  as  an  abstract  question  on  to  which 
he  had  not  previously  turned  his  mind. 

"  And  you  think  that  ought  to  be  taken  into  consideration 
when  one  deals  with  the  destinies  even  of  rose-trees?"  he 
asked  with  a  terrible  air  of  being  in  earnest. 

Merivale  smiled. 

"  Decidedly  London  has  not  been  good  for  you,"  he  said. 
"  I  think  your  words  were  '  the  destinies  even  of  rose-trees.' 
Now  what  destiny  matters  more  than  that  ?  Not  mine,  I  am 
sure,  and  I  doubt  if  yours.  Besides,  the  destinies  of  your 
rose-trees  used  to  be  of  extraordinary  importance,  not  only 
to  them,  but  to  you." 

Philip  was  silent  a  moment.  Then  for  the  first  time,  at 
the  sense  of  peace  that  was  here  so  predominant  a  note,  or 
at  the  sight  of  Tom  himself,  in  all  the  vigour  and  freshness 
of  a  youth  that  measured  by  years  was  already  past,  some 
faint  gleam,  or  if  not  a  gleam,  the  sense  that  light  was 
possible  to  him,  broke  through  the  dismal  darkness  of  his 
soul.  For  one  short  moment  he  laid  his  hand  on  his  friend's 
arm. 

"  Make  allowance  for  me,  Tom,"  he  said. 

In  spite  of  his  long  aloofness  from  the  fretful  race  of  men 
and  the  ways  of  them,  Merivale  had  not  forgotten — indeed  it 
is  as  impossible  for  one  who  has  ever  known  it  to  forget  it  as 
it  is  to  forget  how  to  swim — that  divine  gift  of  tact.  Indeed, 
it  is  probable  that  his  long  sojournings  alone  had,  if  any- 
thing, made  more  sensitive  those  surfaces  which  come  into 
contact  with  others  and  which  others  insensibly  feel  (for 
this  is  tact)  to  be  smooth  and  warm  and  wise.  And  it  was 
a  fine  touch  that  he  did  not  respond,  however  remotely,  to 
Philip's  appeal,  for  Philip  had  told  him  that  pity  and  sym- 
pathy were  exactly  what  he  could  not  stand.  Consequently 
he  let  this  cry  be  the  voice  of  one  in  the  desert;  it  wanted 
silence,  not  audible  answer.  He,  like  the  trees  in  the  garden 
and  the  stream,  must  be  dumb  to  it. 

This  silence  was  the  key  to  several  days  that  followed: 
there  was,  in  fact,  no  intimate  conversation  of  any  sort 
between  the  two  friends.  Philip  would  sit  for  hours  in  the 
garden,  stung  sometimes  into  spasmodic  activity,  during 
which  he  would  send  off  a  dozen  telegrams  to  his  office  on 


226  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

monetary  affairs,  but  for  the  most  part  with  an  unread  paper 
on  his  knees,  or  a  book  that  tumbled  unheeded  on  to  the 
grass.  But  soon  during  this  frosty  and  strictured  time, 
Merivale  thought  he  saw,  as  birds  know  the  hour  of  sun- 
rise before  the  faintest  dawn  illuminates  the  sky,  that  there 
were  signs  that  this  frost  was  less  binding  than  it  had  been. 
Philip  would  take  a  pruning-knife  sometimes,  and  with  his 
deft  and  practised  hand  reduce  a  rose  to  reasonable  dimen- 
sions. Sometimes  half-way  through  the  operation  he  would 
let  the  knife  fall  from  his  fingers,  as  if  his  labours,  like 
everything  else,  were  not  worth  while ;  but  often  afterwards 
he  would  resume  his  labours,  and  enable  the  tree  to  do 
justice  to  itself.  By  degrees,  too,  these  outbursts  of  City 
activity  grew  rarer  and  more  spasmodic,  becoming,  as  it 
were,  but  the  echoes  of  a  habit  rather  than  demonstrations 
of  the  habit  itself.  He  did  not  join  Merivale  in  his  long 
tramps  over  the  forest,  but  he  began  to  wait  for  his  return, 
and  if  he  knew  from  what  point  of  the  compass  he  was 
likely  to  return,  he  sometimes  set  out  to  meet  him.  Once 
Merivale  was  very  late:  his  tramp  had  taken  him  further 
than  usual,  and  night,  falling  cloudy  and  moonless,  had 
surprised  him  in  a  wood  where  even  one  who  knew  the  forest 
as  well  as  he  might  miss  his  way.  On  this  occasion  he  found 
Philip  pacing  up  and  down  the  garden  in  some  agitation. 

"  Ah,  there  you  are,"  he  cried  in  a  tone  of  obvious  relief 
when  his  white-flannelled  figure  appeared  against  the  deep 
dusk  of  the  bushes  that  lined  the  stream.  "  I  was  getting 
anxious,  and  I  did  not  know  what  to  do.  I  should  have 
come  out  to  look  for  you,  but  I  did  not  know  where  you 
might  be  coming  from." 

And  that  little  touch  of  anxiety  was  perhaps  the  first  sign 
that  he  had  shown  since  he  had  abandoned  himself  to  bitter- 
ness that  his  heart  was  not  dead :  never  before  had  the  faint- 
est spark  of  the  sense  of  human  comradeship  or  its  solici- 
tudes appeared. 

Then  Merivale  knew  that  the  fortnight  that  Philip  had 
already  spent  here  had  not  been  utterly  wasted,  and  before 
going  to  bed  that  night  he  wrote  one  line  of  hope  to  Mrs. 
Home. 


FIFTEENTH 


COUPLE  of  days  after  this  the  weather  suddenly 
broke,  and  for  the  unclouded  and  azure  skies  they 
had  a  day  of  low,  weeping  heavens,  with  an  air 
of  dead  and  stifling  dampness.  Never  for  a 
moment  through  the  hours  of  daylight  did  the  sullen  down- 
pour relax ;  the  trees  stood  with  listless,  drooping  branches, 
from  which  under  the  drenching  rain  a  few  early  autumn 
leaves  kept  falling,  though  the  time  of  the  fall  of  the  leaf 
was  not  yet.  In  the  garden  beds  the  plants  had  given  up 
all  attempts  to  look  gay  or  to  stand  up,  and  bent  drearily 
enough  beneath  the  rain  that  scattered  their  petals  and 
dragged  their  foliage  in  the  muddy  earth.  The  birds,  too, 
were  silent ;  only  the  hiss  of  the  rain  was  heard,  and  towards 
afternoon  the  voice  of  the  river  grew  a  little  louder.  Meri- 
vale,  however,  was  undeterred  and  quite  undepressed  by  these 
almost  amphibious  conditions,  and,  as  usual,  went  off  after 
breakfast  for  one  of  those  long  rambles  of  his  in  the  forest, 
leaving  Philip  alone.  There  was  no  hint  of  unfriendliness 
taken  in  this;  indeed,  Philip  had  exacted  a  promise  from 
his  host  on  the  evening  of  arrival  that  his  normal  course  of 
life  should  be  undisturbed. 

That  first  little  token  that  he  had  given  two  days  before 
that  his  heart  was  not  dead  had  more  than  once  repeated 
itself  since  then,  and  he  was  perhaps  faintly  conscious  of 
some  change  in  himself.  He  was  not,  so  far  as  he  knew, 
less  unhappy,  but  that  frightful  hardness  was  beginning  to 
break  down,  the  surface  of  its  ice  was  damped  with  thawed 
water,  his  hatred  of  all  the  world,  his  deep  resentment  at  the 
scheme  of  things — if  any  scheme  underlay  the  wantonness 
of  what  had  happened — was  less  pronounced.  It  might, 
indeed,  be  only  that  he  was  utterly  broken,  that  his  spirit 
of  rebellion  could  no  longer  raise  its  banner  of  revolt,  yet  he 
did  not  feel  as  if  he  had  surrendered,  he  did  not  in  the  least 
fold  his  hands  and  wait  mutely  for  whatever  the  Powers 

227 


228  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

that  be  might  choose  to  do  with  him.  He  was  conscious, 
indeed,  of  the  opposite,  of  a  certain  sense  of  dawning  will- 
power ;  and  though  his  life,  so  to  speak,  lay  shattered  round 
him,  he  knew  that  subconsciously  somehow  he  was  beginning 
to  regard  the  pieces  with  some  slight  curiosity  that  was  new 
to  him,  wondering  if  this  bit  would  fit  on  to  that.  In  a  way 
he  had  plunged  into  business  again  with  that  feverish  rush 
which  had  taken  him  through  August  with  some  such  idea ; 
his  immediate  salvation,  at  any  rate,  he  had  believed  to  lie 
in  concentrated  occupation ;  yet  there  had  been  nothing  con- 
structive about  that;  it  was  a  palliative  measure,  to  relieve 
pain,  rather  than  a  course  that  would  go  to  the  root  of  the 
disease.  Also,  such  as  it  was,  it  had  failed,  his  health  had 
given  way:  he  could  for  the  present  take  no  more  of  that 
opiate. 

In  another  respect  also  it  had  failed,  for  to-day  by  the 
mid-day  post  there  had  come  for  him  communications  of 
the  greatest  importance  from  the  City,  information  which 
was  valuable,  provided  only  he  acted  on  it  without  delay. 
There  was  no  difficulty  about  it,  the  question  had  no  com- 
plications ;  he  himself  had  only  to  send  off  instructions  which 
ten  minutes'  thought  could  easily  frame.  Yet  he  sat  with 
paper  and  pens  in  front  of  him,  doing  nothing,  for  he  had 
asked  himself  a  very  simple  question  instead.  "  Is  it  all 
worth  while?"  was  what  he  said  to  himself.  And  apparently 
it  was  not. 

Now,  if  this  had  happened  a  month  ago,  it  would  have 
been  equivalent  to  a  surrender;  it  would  have  been  a  con- 
fession that  he  was  beaten.  But  now  the  whole  nature  of  his 
-doubt  was  changed.  Work,  it  is  true,  had  done  something 
for  him ;  it  had  got  him  through  a  month  in  which  he  was 
incapable  of  anything  else,  it  had  got  him,  in  fact,  to  the 
point  which  was  indicated  two  days  ago  by  his  little  anxiety 
about  Merivale.  And  had  he  known  it,  that  was  much  the 
most  important  things  that  had  happened  to  him  for  weeks. 
Something  within  him  had  instinctively  claimed  kinship 
again  with  mankind. 

How  hollow  and  objectless  to-day  seemed  the  results  of 
the  last  month !  "  Home's  August,"  as  it  was  already  rue- 
fully known  on  the  Stock  Exchange,  had  plentifully  enriched 
Home,  but  though  the  gold  had  poured  in  like  a  fountain, 
yet,  mixed  with  it,  indissolubly  knitted  into  the  success,  had 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  229 

come  a  leanness.  What  did  it  all  amount  to?  And  lean 
above  all  was  his  paltry  triumph  over  Evelyn,  who,  as  he 
had  since  ascertained,  had  sold  out  Metiekull  when  things 
were  at  their  very  worst,  only  to  realise  that  if  he  had  left 
it  alone,  he  would  have  made  a  handsome  profit.  But  what 
then?  What  good  did  that  pin-prick  of  a  vengeance  do? 
What  gratification  had  it  brought  to  Philip's  most  fevengeftrt 
and  hating  mood?  The  wedding-tour  had  been  cut  short:' 
Evelyn  and  Madge  had  come  back  to  London,  but  that  to^ 
day  gave  him  not  the  smallest  feeling  of  satisfaction  in  that/ 
however  feebly,  he  had  hit  back  at  them.  It  was  all  so  use-- 
less: the  futility  and  childishness  of  his  revenge  made  him 
feel  sick.  If  he  had  a  similar  chance  to-day,  he  would  not 
have  stirred  a  finger. 

But  all  this  emptiness,  and  the  intolerable  depression  that 
still  enveloped  him,  was,  somehow,  of  different  character  to- 
what  it  had  been  before.  It  was  all  bad  and  hopeless 
enough,  but  his  eyes,  so  to  speak,  had  begun  to  veer  round  J 
they  were  no  longer  drearily  fixed  on  the  storms  and  wreck- 
age of  the  past,  but  were  beginning,  however,  ineffectually 
as  yet,  to  peer  into  the  mists  of  the  future.  It  was  exactly 
this  which  was  indicative  of  the  change  that  had  come,  and 
the  indication  was  as  significant  as  the  slow  shifting  of  a 
weather-cock  that  tells  that  the  blackening  east  wind  is  over, 
and  a  kindlier  air  is  breathing,  one  that  perhaps  in  due 
time  shall  call  up  from  the  roots  below  the  earth  the  sap 
that  shall  again  burst  out  in  mist  and  spray  of  young  green 
leaf,  and  put  into  the  heart  of  the  birds  that  mating-time 
has  come  again.  And  that  first  hint  of  change,  though  lisped 
about  while  yet  the  darkness  before  dawn  was  most  black, 
is  better  than  all  the  gold  that  had  poured  in  through  the 
hours  of  the  night. 

Not  all  day  nor  when  night  fell  did  the  rain  cease,  but 
the  air  was  very  warm,  and  the  two  dined  out  as  usual  in  the 
verandah.  The  candles  burned  steadily  in  the  windless  air. 
casting  squares  of  uncertain  light  on  to  the  thick  curtain  of 
the  night  which  was  hung  round  them.  Merivale,,  it 
appeared,  had  passed  a  day  of  high  festival  even  for  him ; 
the  rain  of  which  the  thirsty  earth  was  drinking  so  deeply 
suited  him  no  less. 

"Ah,  there  is  no  mood  of  Nature,"  he  cried,  "which  I 
do  not  love.  This  hot,  soaking  rain  falling  windlessly,  which 


230  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

other  people  find  so  depressing,  is  so  wonderful.  The  earth 
lies  beneath  it,  drinking  like  a  child  at  its  mother's  breast. 
The  trees  stand  with  drooping  leaves,  relaxing  themselves, 
making  no  effort,  just  drinking,  recuperating.  The  moths 
and  winged  things  creep  close  into  crevices  in  their  bark — 
I  saw  a  dozen  such  to-day — or  cling  to  the  underside  of  the 
leaves,  where  they  are  dry  and  cool.  Everything  is  sleeping 
to-day,  and  to  watch  the  earth  sleep  is  like  watching  a  child 
sleep:  however  lovely  and  winsome  it  is  when  it  is  awake, 
yet  its  sleep  is  even  more  beautiful.  There  is  not  a  wrinkle 
on  its  face :  it  is  as  young  as  love,  and  with  closed  eyes  and 
mouth  half-open  it  rests." 

Philip  was  looking  at  him  with  a  sort  of  dumb  envy, 
which  at  length  found  voice. 

"  I  would  give  all  I  have  for  just  one  day  of  your  life," 
he  said,  pushing  back  his  plate  and  putting  his  elbows  on 
the  table,  a  characteristic  movement  when  he  wanted  to  talk, 
as  Merivale  knew. 

"  Ah,  my  dear  fellow,"  he  cried,  "  it  is  something  very 
substantial  gained  already,  if  you  wish  that.  To  want  to  be 
happy  is  a  very  sensible  step  towards  it." 

"  It  is  true  that  a  fortnight  ago  I  don't  think  I  even 
wanted  to  be  happy,"  said  Philip. 

"  I  know.    But  you  have  made  the  first  step.    Also,  I  can 
say  it  now,  you  look  very  much  better  than  when  you  came." 
"  I  am  not  more  happy,"  said  Philip. 
"  No,  but  you  conceive  it  distantly  possible  that  one  day 
you  may  be.    That  has  only  just  begun  to  occur  to  you." 
Philip  established  his  elbows  more  firmly  yet. 
"  You  are  a  living  miracle,  Tom !"  he  said.     "  I  believe 
you  are  happier  than  any  man  on  this  earth  has  ever  been, 
since,  at  any  rate,  man  began  to  grow  complicated  and  want 
things.     You  want  nothing,  I  suppose,  do  you?    And  is  it 
that  which  has  made  you  a  boy  again,  while  wanting  and 
not  getting,  and  being  robbed  of  what  was  mine,  has  made 
an  old  man  of  me?" 

Tom  smiled,  showing  his  white  even  teeth. 
"  Ah,  I  want,"  he  said,  "  I  want  passionately,  but  I  feel 
sure  I  shall  get  what  I  want.    It  is  the  old  story,  I  have  told 
it  you  before :  what  I  want  is  the  full  realisation  of  the  one- 
ness of  all  life,  and  of  the  joy  that  pervades  everything." 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  231 

"  What  would  I  not  give  to  realise  one  millioneth-part  of 
that?"  said  Philip. 

He  paused  a  moment  and  then  broke  out  suddenly. 

"  Ah,  it  is  the  very  intensity  and  completeness  with  which 
I  loved  her  that  makes  it  all  so  bitter/'  he  said.  "  A  little 
love  would  only  have  meant  a  little  bitterness.  But  my  love 
was  not  little,  and  so  also  is  not  my  bitterness.  And  after- 
wards, I  did  the  best  thing  I  could  think  of.  I  worked, 
using  work  as  a  drug.  As  you  know,  I  took  too  much  of 
that  drug,  and  nearly  broke  down  in  consequence.  And, 
oddly  enough,  now,  so  far  from  finding  myself  a  slave  to  it. 
the  thought  of  it  is  rather  distasteful  than  otherwise.  I 
might  have  made  quite  a  lot  of  money  to-day,  if  I  had  only 
taken  the  trouble  to  write  a  telegram,  which  would  have 
been  done  in  ten  minutes  and  have  cost  me  ten  shillings. 
But  I  thought :  '  Is  it  worth  while  ?'  And  when  one  thinks 
that,  it  is  certainly  not  worth  while :  only  things  that  are 
quite  indubitably  worth  while  are  worth  while  at  all.  And 
then  I  thought  over  what  I  had  done  to  Evelyn,  and  that 
seemed  not  worth  while  either.  I  should  not  do  it  again  if 
I  had  the  chance." 

"  What  was  that?"  asked  Merivale. 

Philip  told  him  in  a  few  words  the  history  of  Metiekull. 

"  It  was  designed  to  hurt  Madge,  too,"  he  said,  "  which 
again  doesn't  seem  worth  while.  I  don't  care  whether  she 
is  hurt  or  not.  And  I  thought  I  was  so  strong,  so  un- 
bending." 

He  paused  a  moment,  but  the  need  of  confiding,  of  laying 
his  heart  open,  was  strong  upon  him.  It  had  long  been 
clammed  up,  now  the  flood-water  had  at  last  begun  to  make 
a  breach  in  the  banks. 

"  I  love  her  still,"  he  said,  "  and  I  loved  her  all  the  time 
when  I  would  have  done  anything  to  hurt  her.  I  wonder  if 
you  understand  that.  It  is  true  at  all  events.  I  would  like, 
or  rather  I  would  have  liked,  to  hurt  her  and  go  on  hurting 
till  she  writhed  with  pain,  and  all  the  time  I  should  have  been 
longing  to  kiss  her  tears  away.  But  now  I  don't  want  to 
hurt  her  any  more.  It  does  not  seem  worth  while.  And 
besides,  I  can't  hurt  her;  only  one  person  in  the  world  can 
really  hurt  her,  because  she  loves  him.  I  am  an  object  of 
indifference  to  her,  and  therefore  I  have  no  power  to  hurt 
her.  My  God,  by  what  diabolical  trick  is  it  that  only  those 


232  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

we  love  have  the  power  to  hurt  us  ?    That  was  a  cruel  trick 
God  played  on  us  when  he  made  us  so.     It  is  infamous !" 

His  hands,  which  were  supporting  his  head,  trembled,  and 
for  the  first  time  his  eyes  grew  soft  with  unshed  tears.  Never 
until  this  moment  had  he  felt  the  slightest  desire  to  weep; 
now  the  tears  were  ready  to  come.  But  he  repressed  them 
and  went  on. 

"  My  house  is  in  ruins,"  he  said,  "  and  perhaps  I  have  been 
looking  at  the  ruins  too  long.  It  has  done  no  good  in  any 
case :  looking  at  them  has  brought  me  no  nearer  to  laying  the 
first  stone  again.  I  have  just  the  sense  left  to  see  that.  One 
has  to  build,  to  begin  again,  not  count  over  the  destruction 
that  has  been  wrought.  Yet  my  house  was  so  beautiful,  the 
house  that  wis  already  built,  and  waited  only  for  one  to 
enter." 

Again  he  paused,  for  his  voice  trembled,  too. 

"  But  as  there  is  no  such  futile  fool  as  the  pathetic  fool," 
said  he,  "  I  will  not  go  on  about  that.  I  want,  and  I  want  you 
to  help  me  in  this,  to  look  the  other  way,  forward.  I  think 
you  have  vitality  enough,  or  call  it  what  you  will,  to  resusci- 
tate a  man  who  is  all  but  drowned,  over  whose  head  the  bil- 
lows have  gone.  There  is  something  infectious  about  you,  I 
think ;  you  somehow  shine  on  one,  and  I  feel  as  if  I  was  sick- 
ening, so  to  speak,  by  being  with  you,  for  the  disease  of  life. 
Work,  anyhow,  did  me  no  good  ;  it  only  ended  in  my  breaking 
down.  But  mere  idling  here  has  done  something  for  me. 
I  feel  as  if  I  could  acquiesce  in  continuing  idle  here,  whereas 
before  the  thought  of  continuing  to  do  either  anything  or 
nothing  was  intolerable.  I  could  but  just  get  through  the 
present  dreadful  moment.  Through  all  these  weeks  the  next 
moment,  the  next  hour,  the  next  day,  might  easily  have 
proved  to  be  impossible.  For,  look  here — you  know  I  am 
not  melodramatic !" 

He  took  from  his  pocket  a  little  surgical  lancet,  and  stroked 
the  side  of  his  throat  with  his  thumb. 

"  I  tried  to  get  prussic  acid,"  he  said,  "  but  I  suppose  I 
asked  for  it  badly,  and  they  did  not  believe  some  foolish  tale 
about  a  dog  which  I  wanted  to  put  out  of  the  way.  So  I 
bought  this.  One  little  incision — I  took  the  trouble  to  learn 
the  right  place,  for  it  is  dreadfully  foolish  to  make  a  mess, 
over  and  above  the  mess  that  must  be  made,  about  such  sim- 
ple things.  I  don't  really  know  why  I  have  not  used  it  before ; 


THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN  233 

I  can  only  say  it  was  not  from  cowardice.  But  now  I  want 
it  no  longer ;  I  am  beginning  to  be  able  to  look  forward.  So 
it  goes." 

With  a  jerk  of  his  wrist  he  flung  it  among  the  shrubs  to 
the  right  of  the  lawn,  where  it  fell  with  a  little  splutter  of 
applause,  as  it  were,  from  the  leaves,  as  if  they,  too,  were 
glad  to  assist  in  the  disposal  and  forgetting  of  it. 

But  Merivale  looked  neither  shocked  nor  surprised ;  it  was 
as  if  but  a  very  commonplace  thing  had  been  told  him. 

"  Yes,  my  dear  chap,"  he  said,  "  of  course  I  don't  put  it 
down  to  cowardice,  the  fact,  I  mean,  that  you  did  not  use  that 
abominable  little  knife.  Why,  if  you  were  a  coward,  you 
would  have  done  so.  Of  course  it  must  have  been  much 
easier  for  you  to  die  than  to  live  all  this  time.  But  I'm  glad 
you  weren't  a  coward,  Philip.  I  don't  think  a  coward  can 
be  much  good  for  anything.  A  man  who  won't  meet  what 
is  in  front  of  him,  and  prefers  to  run  away  somewhere,  he 
doesn't  know  where,  is  a  poor  sort  of  being.  Of  course,  we 
all  have  our  fears ;  life  is  full  of  terror.  All  we  can  do  is  to 
say  we  are  not  afraid,  and  to  behave  as  if  we  were  not. 
And  since  you  have  thrown  that  knife  away,  I  may  say  that 
I  think  suicide  is  one  of  the  most  abject  species  of  cowardice. 
Of  course  you  were  not  yourself  when  you  contemplated  it, 
however  vaguely.  Now  that  you  are  a  little  better,  you 
throw  the  thing  away." 

His  tone  was  so  extremely  matter-of-fact  that  its  very  nor- 
malness  arrested  Philip.  As  he  had  said,  it  was  perfectly 
true  that  nothing  was  further  from  his  thoughts  than  melo- 
drama, and  the  interest  he  felt  in  Tom's  attitude,  as  thus 
revealed,  towards  life  and  death  and  fear  was  a  fresh  sign, 
and  he  himself  felt  it  to  be  such,  of  his  reawakening  interests. 
Hitherto  it  had  not,  however  remotely,  concerned  him  as  to 
what  anyone  else  might  think  of  it  all. 

"  You  talk  of  fears,"  he  said ;  "  what  do  you  know  of 
them  ?  Surely  you,  at  any  rate,  are  free  from  fear.  Oh,  talk, 
Tom,  interest  me  in  anything ;  talk  about  yourself,  or  birds, 
or  beasts.  You  have  given  me  so  much:  give  me  more. 
Give  me  the  foundation  of  my  new  house,  since  it  is  you — 
yes,  you,  you  dear  fellow — who  have  made  me  turn  my  back 
upon  the  ruins.  I  have  got  to  begin  again  ;  I  have  nothing  to 
begin  with.  I  am  bankrupt.  I  beg  you  to  give  me  a  bit  of 
that  which  you  have  so  abundantly." 


234  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

His  voice  again  half-failed  him,  but  he  recovered  it  in  a 
moment. 

"  We  were  talking  about  fear,"  he  said ;  "  what  have  you 
got  to  fear  ?  You  don't  depend  on  men  and  women ;  you 
don't  love.  There  is  nothing  in  the  world  to  be  afraid  of 
except  love.  I  have  found  that  out.  Yet  people  seek  it,  the 
fools.  They  call  it  by  sweet  names :  they  say  it  is  love  that 
makes  life  worth  living.  My  God,  I  should  be  so  content  if 
I  had  never  known  what  it  was.  Damn  her !  I  could  have 
lived  exactly  like  you — no,  that  is  not  true;  I  could  never 
have  been  even  remotely  happy  without  loving  her,  just  as, 
if  I  had  never  loved  her,  I  should  never  have  known  what 
misery  was.  But  you  among  your  birds  and  beasts  and  trees, 
what  on  earth  have  you  to  fear  ?  You  won't  fall  in  love  with 
a  beach-tree  and  find  that  it  elopes  with  an  elm.  Tell  me 
about  your  bloodless  Paradise,  and  how  the  serpent,  which  is 
fear,  can  enter  into  it." 

Tom  Merivale  had  grown  rather  grave  during  this  sudden 
outburst.  Nothing  in  the  world,  so  he  believed,  had  power 
to  ruffle  his  temper :  only  it  was  difficult  to  explain  to  such  a 
child  as  Philip  had  shown  himself  to  be.  But  before  the 
pause  was  on  his  side  the  other  spoke  again. 

"  I  am  sorry,"  he  said,  "  but  it  was  a  sort  of  baffled  ignor- 
ance that  spoke.  I  don't  understand  you ;  and  for  that  rea- 
son I  had  no  business  to  call  your  happiness,  which  is  mad- 
deningly real  to  me,  a  bloodless  Paradise.  But,  for  God's 
sake,  show  me  anything  approaching  Paradise,  at  the  door 
of  which  there  is  not  an  angel  with  a  sword,  not  flaming,  but 
cold  and  convincing.  And  where,  above  all,  is  your  fear? 
How  can  fear  exist  for  you?  What  is  there  to  be  afraid  of 
unless  you  love  and  can  be  betrayed?" 

Philip's  servant  came  out  from  the  house,  bringing  a  tray 
with  glasses  and  bottles.  He  paused  by  his  master  a  moment. 

"  What  time  will  you  be  called,  sir  ?"  he  asked. 

"  Usual  time ;  you  can  go  to  bed." 

The  pause  lasted  till  the  man  had  entered  the  house  again. 
Then  Merivale  spoke. 

"  I  fear  all  I  have  not  learned,"  he  said.  "  I  fear  the  reve- 
lation of  what  people  suffer,  of  what  you  have  suffered,  of 
what  Christ  suffered.  I  fear  that  all  suffering,  in  its  degree, 
is  atonement.  I  don't  believe  it,  mind  you,  but  I  am  afraid 
it  may  be  true,  and  that  somehow  I  shall  have  to  believe  it. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  235 

I  am  not  a  Christian,  and  so  I  put  it  that  a  man  who  was  as 
infinitely  above  the  rest  of  mankind  as  Shakespeare  is  above 
the  child  which  is  idiotic  from  its  birth  and  has  never  felt 
the  warmth  of  the  slightest  spark  of  reason,  found  it  neces- 
sary to  die,  and  believed  that  his  death  atoned  for  the  sins  of 
the  whole  world.  Ah,  if  I  only  believed  that  he  was  right, 
how  instinctively  I  should  believe  that  he  was  God.  No  oae 
but  God  could  have  thought  of  that." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"  But  I  am  beginning  to  think  that  I  shall  not  die  without 
believing  it,"  he  said.  "  I  don't  think  that  even  the  death  of 
the  body  could  come  to  this  body  of  mine  unless  I  became 
convinced  of  the  necessity  for  suffering  and  for  death.  Why 
am  I  beginning  to  think  that  ?  I  can't  possibly  say ;  there  is 
never  any  reason  for  one's  believing  anything,  except  the 
conviction  that  it  must  be  so.  Evelyn,  I  remember,  once 
talked  to  me  about  it.  At  that  time  I  was  satisfied  with  my 
own  reasoning;  now  I  am  not.  I  said  to  him  then  that  my 
metier  was  the  realisation  of  joy.  Well,  at  present  I  know 
nothing  that  invalidates  that  belief.  But  I  see  clearly  now 
the  possibility  that  he  was  right,  in  which  case  it  is  possible 
that  my  fears,  about  which  you  asked,  are  right  also.  Mind, 
I  am  not  afraid  in  any  case.  I  would  sooner  see  all  the  sor- 
rows of  the  world,  and  realise  them,  as  far  as  I  am  able,  than 
turn  aside.  But  my  fear  is  that  I  may  be  called  upon  to 
realise  them.  I  shall  not  like  it,  but  if  that  is  to  be,  I  can 
assure  you  that  I  shall  not  attempt  to  turn  back.  Not  one 
step  of  the  way  which  I  have  gone  along  would  I  retrace.  I 
will  meet  them  all,  I  will  realise  them  all.  And,  in  my  own 
language,  that  means  that  I  shall  see  Pan,  the  god  of  all 
Nature,  of  the  suffering  and  sorrow  of  Nature  as  well  as  the 
illimitable  life  and  joy  of  her.  And  to  tell  you^the  truth,  I 
think  it  quite  probable  that  I  may  have  to  do  so." 

The  rain  had  stopped,  and  a  sudden  sough  of  the  wind  in 
the  bushes  sounded  as  if  some  animal  had  strayed  there. 
Twigs  creaked  as  if  broken ;  small  branches  swayed.  Also, 
so  it  seemed  to  Philip,  the  wind  brought  with  it  some  faint, 
indefinable  aroma,  evoked  no  doubt  by  this  rain  from  some 
shrub  in  the  garden.  But  for  all  his  horticultural  knowledge, 
he  could  not  give  a  name  to  it ;  it  was  pungent,  of  an  animal 
flavour  to  the  nostrils,  and  reminded  him,  with  the  instanta- 
neous evoking  of  memory  which  scent  possesses  above  all 


236  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

the  other  senses,  of  a  chalet  in  which  he  had  once  taken 
refuge  from  a  sudden  mountain  storm  in  some  Alp  above 
Zermatt.  Tom,  too,  just  then  threw  back  his  head,  and 
seemed  to  sniff  for  a  moment  in  the  air.  But  he  made  no 
comment,  and  continued — 

"  Yes,  it  was  Evelyn  who  suggested  that  to  me,"  he  said. 
"  His  idea,  I  think,  was  that  somehow  and  somewhere  the 
balance  is  struck,  that  if  one  is  overloaded  with  joy,  some 
compensating  pain  has  got  to  be  put  in  before  one  is  com- 
plete. It  may  come  in  a  moment,  so  I  conjecture,  or  one  may 
have  to  suffer  the  agony  of  months  and  years,  but  of  this  I 
am  sure,  that  the  balance  is  in  favour  of  joy.  If  I  have  to 
suffer,  my  suffering  will  be  quite  certainly  less  than  the  joy 
I  have  had.  If  the  sorrows  of  death  come  upon  me,  they 
will  weigh — I  am  certain  of  this — less  than  the  ecstasies  of 
life  that  have  been  mine.  But,  dear  God,  I  have  a  long  bill 
to  settle." 

The  mention  of  Evelyn  had  roused  black  blood  again. 

"  He  too  will  have  a  bill  to  pay,"  said  Philip. 

Merivale  took  this  quite  impersonally. 

"  Yes,  Evelyn  is  extraordinarily  happy,"  he  said.  "  I  have 
scarcely  ever  known  him  otherwise.  If  he  is  right  about  me, 
he  will  have  to  be  right  about  himself.  Poor  chap !  What 
a  good  thing  it  is  that  neither  you  nor  I  have  to  be  his  judges, 
or  have  to  apportion  to  him  the  dose  of  misery  which  will 
suit  him.  How  could  one  tell  when  a  man  has  had  enough 
to  make  him  whole,  complete?" 

He  got  up  quickly  and  looked  out  into  the  night. 

"  Ah,  we  have,  all  got  to  be  made  perfect,"  he  cried.  "  I 
take  it  that  no  man  in  his  senses  can  have  any  doubt  of  that. 
The  thing  which  is  you,  that  essential,  vital  flame,  has  got 
now  or  at  some  future  time  to  burn  its  best.  I  have  to  do 
the  same;  we  shall  all  be  strung  up  to  perfection  either 
through  joy,  or,  perhaps,  if  we  are  approaching  it  from  the 
other  side,  through  some  blinding  pain.  We  all  have  to  at- 
tempt to  approach  perfection  to  the  best  of  our  abilities. 
Our  abilities  may  make  a  mistake ;  very  likely  they  do.  But 
I,  when  I  attempt  to  approach  the  best  of  me  through  the 
pleasant  ways  of  joy  and  simplicity,  I  would  not  go  back  one 
step  to  save  myself  from  the  pangs  that  may  follow.  I  am 
very  likely  blind,  but,  as  far  as  I  know,  I  do  my  best.  Per- 
haps— who  knows,  since  my  life  has  been  an  extraordinarily 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  237 

useless  one,  as  the  world  counts  '  use/  the  world  may  be 
right,  and  I  shall  have  to  embark  on  a  career  of  work  in  an 
office.  But  I  don't  think  that  is  likely." 

Again  he  paused  a  moment,  taking  a  deep  breath  of  the 
night  air  into  his  lungs.  Then  he  turned  round. 

"  You  told  me  not  to  pity  you,"  he  said,  "  and  I  tacitly 
agreed  not  to,  and  fully  intended  not  to.  But  the  time  has 
come  when  my  pity  cannot  hurt  you.  For  I  pity  you  from 
the  same  plane  as  that  on  which  I  perhaps  some  day  may  be 
glad  of  your  pity.  You  have  suffered,  and  you  are  suffering. 
Well,  I  pity  you,  as  God  pities  you,  supposing  that  suffering 
does  happen  to  be  necessary.  I  would  not  spare  you  one 
pang  of  it,  if  this  is  so,  but  I  just  put  out  my  hand  to  you, 
saying  that  I  am  there,  and  watching  and  worshipping,  I 
may  say,  for  if  suffering  is  necessary  it  is  certainly  sacred. 
I  don't  know  that  it  is  necessary ;  but  if  it  is,  there  am  I,  if 
that  will  do  you  any  good,  and  there  also  are  all  those  who 
have  suffered,  watching  you  with  the  pity  that  cannot  help 
healing  a  little,  and  the  sympathy  that  lightens.  But  if  I 
were  convinced,  even  for  the  winking  of  an  eye,  and  to  save 
a  woodlouse  from  the  absence  of  its  dinner,  that  suffering 
must  be,  I  should  accept  it  all,  and  take  not  only  my  share  of 
it,  but  the  share  of  anybody  else  who  would  be  so  good  as  to 
shoulder  me  with  it,  for  it  is  impossible  to  have  enough  or 
too  much  of  anything  that  is  right.  At  present  I  have  not 
seen — so  as  to  know  — the  necessity  of  it,  though  I  have  long 
known  that  all  Nature  groans  under  it.  Everything  preys 
on  something  else — you  prey  on  the  animals  you  eat,  and  the 
folk  you  make  fools  of  on  the  Stock  Exchange.  And  Evelyn 
preys  on  you.  Yes,  yes.  And  I — I  try  to  prey  on  nobody, 
but  perhaps  this  law  of  preying  will  some  day  be  brought 
home  to  me.  My  joy,  which  so  weighs  down  the  scale,  may 
have  its  compensating  burden  of  suffering  given  to  it.  And 
whatever  blackness  of  horror  awaits  me,  I  won't  turn  back. 
My  way  of  approach  is  this:  to  others  there  is  the  rough- 
and-tumble  of  the  world,  to  others  the  ascetic  life.  But  I 
believe  that  joy  and  life  are  the  predominant  factors ;  that  is 
why  I  have  chosen  them,  it  has  been  my  business  to  get 
acquainted  anyhow  with  them.  But  what  I  absolutely  refuse 
is  the  horrible  mean,  where  one  makes  no  ventures,  and  but 
paddles  on  the  shore  of  the  eternal  sea.  Let  the  breakers 
leave  me  high  and  dry  and  smashed  on  the  shingle,  or  let  me 


238  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

steer  through  them  and  see  the  unimagined  islands  of  myth 
and  fable.  But  I  will  not  just  pull  my  shoes  and  stockings 
off,  and  shriek  when  the  water  comes  up  to  my  knee.  Some- 
thing, whatever  it  is,  must  infallibly  be  so  much  better  than 
nothing." 

He  walked  up  and  down  the  verandah  once  or  twice  with 
his  long,  smooth  step,  moving  with  that  peculiar  grace  and 
ease  which  denotes  great  physical  strength.  He  had  forgot- 
ten about  Philip,  and  Philip  for  the  first  time  had  forgotten 
about  Philip  too. 

"  But  during  these  last  years,"  he  went  on,  "  I  have  con- 
sciously and  deliberately  turned  my  back  on  pain,  because  it 
is  hideous,  because  it  is  a  foe  to  joy,  and  because  I  have  not 
and  do  not  now  realise  its  necessity.  All  I  can  say  is,  with 
Oliver  Cromwell,  it  is  just  possible  I  may  be  mistaken,  and 
in  that  case  I  am  sure  I  shall  have  to — ah,  no,  be  allowed  to — 
learn  my  mistake.  A  child  crying  seems  to  me  a  dreadful 
thing,  a  beggar  by  the  wayside  with  a  broken  tobacco-pipe, 
and  not  a  penny  to  get  another,  the  shriek  of  the  rabbit  when 
the  stoat's  teeth  fasten  in  its  throat ;  they  are  all  dreadful,  and 
enemies  to  joy.  But  I  am  no  longer  convinced,  as  I  used  to 
be,  that  pain  is  unnecessary;  I  am  beginning,  as  I  said,  to 
hold  an  open  mind  on  the  subject,  and  only  say  that  I  believe 
I  can  realise  myself  best  and  bring  myself  best  into  harmony 
with  Nature,  with  the  whole  design,  by  avoiding  it.  Yet  for 
me  also  pain  and  suffering  may  be  necessary.  If  so,  let  them 
come;  I  am  quite  ready.  I  only  hope  that  it  will  be  soon 
over,  that  it  will  be  so  frightful  that  I  can't  stand  it.  I  should 
prefer  that,  some  blinding,  dreadful  flash  of  revelation,  to 
any  slow,  remorseless  grinding  of  the  truth  into  me.  That, 
however,  is  not  in  my  hands." 

Philip's  mind  had  gone  back  again  on  to  himself. 

"  But  how  can  it  possibly  be  any  good  that  those  two 
should  have  behaved  like  this  to  me?"  he  cried,  speaking 
directly  for  the  first  time.  "  What  monstrous  image  do  you 
make  of  the  controller  of  the  world  and  all  our  destinies,  if 
it  is  by  his  will  that  this  is  done  to  me  which  turns  all  that 
may  have  been  good  in  me  into  hatred  and  bitterness?  Is 
that  the  lesson  that  I  am  meant  to  learn — that  those  whom 
one  loves  best  are  one's  bitterest  foes,  and  will  hurt  one 
most?" 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  239 

Tom  stopped  in  his  walk  and  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the 
table  by  Philip. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  he  said,  "  Oliver  Cromwell  will  help 
us  again.  Is  it  not  just  possible  that  you  too  are  mistaken 
when  you  assume  that  your  trouble  was  sent  you  in  order 
that  your  love  might  be  turned  into  hate?  That  it  should 
have  happened  so  may  (just  possibly  again)  be  in  some 
measure  your  fault.  Could  you  not  have  done  otherwise, 
and  done  better?  I  don't  want  to  preach,  you  know." 

Philip  sat  silent,  but  his  face  hardened  again. 

"  If  I  could  have  done  better,  it  would  not  have  been  I," 
he  said.  "  It  would  have  been  altogether  another  man." 

Tom  got  down  off  the  table. 

"  Ah,  you  repudiate  moral  responsibility  for  your  own 
acts,"  he  said. 

"  Not  exactly  that.  I  say  that  there  may  be  circumstances 
under  which  one's  will  is  crumpled  up  like  a  piece  of  waste 
paper,  and  one's  powers  of  resistance  are  paralysed.  Don't 
you  believe  that?" 

Merivale  shook  his  head. 

"  No,  I  don't  believe  that  the  power  of  choice  is  ever  taken 
away  from  one  while  one  remains  sane,"  he  said.  "  The 
moment  one  cannot  choose,  the  doors  of  Bedlam  are  opened." 

Philip  got  up. 

"  They  are  still  ajar  for  me,"  he  said.  "  But  they  were 
more  widely  open  when  I  came  here.  For  pity's  sake,  Tom, 
go  on  helping  me.  It  is  only  you,  I  think,  who  can  get  them 
closed  for  me." 

He  paused  a  moment,  looking  out  into  the  still  blackness 
of  the  garden,  and  again  something  stirred  and  creaked  in 
the  bushes,  and  the  drowsy  wind  was  tainted  with  some 
sharp  smell.  He  turned  to  Tom — 

"  I  wonder  if  all  that  you  have  been  saying  is  a  fairy  tale," 
he  said,  "  and  whether  I  have  been  taking  it  literally,  so  that 
I  imagine  that  things  which  are  only,  and  can  only  be,  alle- 
gorical and  mythical  are  true." 

"  You  mean  the  Pan-pipes,  for  instance,  which  I  heard  for 
the  first  time  at  Pangbourne,  and  which  I  hear  so  often 
now  ?"  asked  Merivale. 

"  Yes,  that  among  other  things.     Pan  himself,  too. 
begin  to  think  of  Pan  as  a  real  being,  the  incarnation  of  all 
the  terror  and  fear  and  sorrow  of  the  world.    The  crying 


240  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

child  you  spoke  of  is  part  of  Pan,  the  shriek  of  the  rabbit  is 
part  of  him.  All  these  things,  as  you  say,  you  have  turned 
your  back  on.  What  if  they  should  all  be  shown  you  sud- 
denly, they  and  the  huge  significance  and  universality  of 
them?" 

Merivale  looked  quite  grave ;  anyhow  it  was  no  fairy  story 
to  him,  whatever  it  might  be  to  others. 

"  Yes,  that  is  all  possible,"  he  said,  "  and  that  will  mean 
that  I  shall  see  Pan.  What  a  wonderful  mode  of  expression 
that  is  of  the  Greeks.  For  Pan  means  '  everything/  and  to 
see  everything  would  be  clearly  more  than  one  could  stand. 
And  so  to  see  Pan  means  death." 

Once  again  the  strange,  pungent  odour  was  noticeable. 

"  Where  are  you  going  to  sleep  to-night  ?"  asked  Philip 
suddenly. 

"  Oh,  in  the  hammock,"  said  Tom.  "  I  hardly  ever  sleep 
in  the  house." 

Then  a  more  definite,  though  utterly  fantastic,  fear  seized 
Philip. 

"  No,  sleep  in  the  house  to-night,"  he  said,  feeling  that  his 
fear  was  too  childish  to  be  allowed  utterance. 

At  that  Merivale  laughed ;  there  was  no  need  for  Philip 
to  utter  his  thought,  for  he  knew  perfectly  well  what  it  was. 

"  I  know  what  you  mean,"  he  said,  "  but  do  you  think  that 
if  Pan  is  going  to  visit  me  he  will  only  come  into  the  garden, 
and  not  into  the  house  ?  You  are  mixing  up  the  fear  of  Pan 
with  the  general  sense  of  insecurity  about  sleeping  out  of 
doors,  which  comes  from  unfamiliarity  with  that  delightful 
way  of  spending  the  night.  And  I  know  another  thing  you 
felt ;  you  heard  an  odd  rustling  in  the  bushes,  as  I  often  hear 
it,  and  you  smelt  a  rather  queer  smell,  something  rather 
pungent,  and  it  reminded  you  of  a  goat.  Of  course  Pan  used 
to  appear,  so  the  Greek  myth  said,  in  goat  form,  and  your 
inference  was  that  Pan  was  in  those  bushes.  But  he  is  just 
as  much  in  this  verandah,  and,  for  that  matter,  in  Piccadilly, 
poor  thing!  There  is  quite  certainly  no  getting  away  from 
him ;  I  am  as  safe  here  as  I  should  be  if  I  was  locked  into  the 
strong-room  in  the  Bank  of  England.  For  it  is  not  just  to 
this  place  or  that  that  he  comes,  but  to  this  person  or  that." 

They  parted  after  this,  Philip  going  upstairs  to  his  bed- 
room, while  Tom,  after  changing  into  a  sleeping  suit,  went 
out  with  a  rug  over  his  arm  into  the  dusky  halls  of  the  night. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  241 

Sleep,  when  the  time  for  sleep  had  come,  visited  him  as- 
quickly  as  it  visits  every  healthy  animal ;  and  if  it  kept  aloof, 
he  no  more  worried  about  it,  or  tried  to  woo  it,  than  he  would 
take  appetising  scraps  of  caviare  or  olives  to  make  him  hun- 
gry. And  to-night  he  lay  for  some  time,  not  tossing  or 
turning  in  his  hammock,  but  with  eyes  wide  open,  looking 
through  the  tracery  of  briar  and  leaf  above  him  into  the 
sombre  darkness  of  the  clouds  overhead.  So  dark  was  it 
that  the  foliage  was  only  just  blacker  than  the  sky,  and  to 
right  and  left  the  trees  were  shapeless  blots  against  it.  But 
all  that  mattered  was  that  sky  and  clouds  and  trees  were  all 
round  him,  and  that  he  could  sink  and  merge  himself  in  the 
spirit  and  the  life  with  which  they  were  impregnated.  He 
lay  open  to  it ;  just  as  his  lungs  were  filled  with  the  open  air 
and  his  body  vivified  by  it,  so  his  soul  and  spirit  drank  in  and 
breathed  that  open,  essential  life  that  ran  through  all  things, 
the  life  that  day  by  day  he  more  fully  realised  to  be  One 
thing,  expressing  itself  in  the  myriad  forms  of  tree  and  beast 
and  man.  And  though  still  that  curious  rustle  and  stir  went 
on  in  the  bushes,  and  though  once  he  thought  he  heard  the 
tap  as  of  some  hoofed  thing  upon  the  brick  path  of  the 
pergola,  he  did  not  stir,  nor  did  any  sense  of  dismay  or  fear 
come  to  him.  He  had  followed  the  path  which  he  believed 
was  his,  striving  to  make  himself  one  with  the  eternal  har- 
mony of  Nature,  and  if  the  revelation  of  her  discords  was  to- 
come  to  him,  come  it  would ;  the  matter  was  not  in  his  hands. 
But  in  whoever's  hands  it  was,  he  was  content  to  leave  it 
there. 

Philip  meantime  fared  less  easily  in  his  bed  indoors.  The 
talk  this  evening  had  brought  back  to  him  with  a  terrible 
vividness  all  he  had  been  through,  the  bitterness  and  hatred 
of  his  own  heart  all  blossomed  poisonously  again,  now  that 
Merivale  had  gone,  and  he  was  left  alone  in  the  darkness  and 
quiet  of  the  night.  That  there  was  some  subtle  and  very 
powerful  influence  which  surrounded  the  Hermit  like  an 
atmosphere  of  his  own  he  felt  fully;  in  his  company  he 
knew  how  strong  a  sense  of  healing  and  serenity  was  abroad, 
.but  to-night,  at  any  rate,  all  his  foes,  which  he  had  almost 
dared  to  hope  were  being  vanquished  and  left  for  dead,  were 
rising  about  him  again  in  ghostly  battalions.  He  had,  so 
he  dimly  hoped,  begun  to  slay  them,  but  it  seemed  for  the 
moment  that  he  had  been  but  smiting  at  shadows  that  took 


242  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

no  hurt  from  his  blows.  For  a  little  while  he  had  been  able 
to  set  his  face  forward,  to  fancy  that  he  was  beginning  really 
to  make  way,  but  now,  as  he  glanced  back  over  his  shoulder, 
the  enemy  pursued  undiminished  after  him.  Again  he  felt 
his  lips  were  quivering  with  sheer  hatred  of  those  who  had 
so  hurt  him,  and  his  hands  were  clenched  in  passionate  desire 
to  strike.  And  thus  for  hours  he  tossed  and  turned,  until 
his  window  again,  as  in  Jermyn  Street,  began  to  "  grow  a 
glimmering  square,"  and  the  tentative  notes  of  birds  to 
flute  in  the  bushes,  and  he  was  back  again  in  those  darkest 
hours  he  had  ever  known. 

Then  his  bed  became  intolerable,  and  he  rose  from  it  and 
walked  about  the  room,  until  the  huelessness  of  the  earliest 
dawn  began  to  be  touched  with  colour.  Never  since  the 
blow  had  fallen  upon  him  had  he  been  able  to  pray;  his 
bitterness  and  hatred  had  come  like  the  figure  of  Satan  him- 
self between  him  and  prayer. 

Philip  suddenly  paused ;  another  dawn  was  beginning  to 
break,  a  dawn  yet  remote  and  far  off  in  the  Eastern  skies, 
but  a  faint,  dim  streak  of  light  was  there.  It  was  indeed 
true;  it  was  his  own  hatred,  his  own  bitterness,  not  what 
others  had  done  to  him,  which  had  stood  in  his  way,  and,  as 
Merivale  had  said,  the  power  of  choice  was  in  possession 
of  every  man  who  was  fit  to  move  about  the  world.  He  had 
accepted  that  when  it  was  stated  to  him ;  he  knew  it  to  be 
true,  and  thus  choice  was  still  his.  He  had  to  choose,  and 
to  choose  now.  Did  he  want  to  hate  and  be  bitter  ?  Did  he 
deliberately,  in  so  far  as  he  could  choose,  choose  that? 

So,  though  no  word  crossed  his  lips  or  was  even  formed 
in  his  brain,  he  prayed. 


SIXTEENTH 


'HE  elder  Lady  Ellington  had  never  yet  in  the  whole 
course  of  her  combative  life  been  knocked  out  of 
time  by  the  blows  of  adverse  circumstances,  and 
she  did  not  intend  to  begin  being  knocked  out  now. 
That  Madge's  marriage  was  a  frightful  disaster  she  did  not 
deny  or  seek  to  conceal,  but  her  admirable  habits  of  self- 
control  and  her  invariable  custom  of  never  letting  anything 
dwell  on  her  mind  or  make  her  worry,  served  her  in  good 
stead  now.  She  considered  that  Madge  and  Evelyn  had 
both  behaved  quite  unpardonably,  and  though  she  had  no 
thought  of  pardoning  either  of  them,  she  had  no  thought  of 
dwelling  on  the  matter.  When  the  thing  was  done,  it  was 
done,  and,  liice  David,  she,  so  to  speak,  proposed  to  go  and 
oil  herself — in  other  words,  to  pay  her  customary  round  of 
summer  and  autumn  visits,  carrying  with  her  all  her  old 
inflexible  firmness  and  readiness  to  advise.  For  Philip, 
finally,  she  hardly  felt  pity  at  all ;  a  man  really  must  be  a 
fool  if  he  could  lose  his  wife  like  that  at  the  eleventh  hour. 
It  was  impossible  to  acquit  him  altogether  of  blame,  though 
it  would  have  puzzled  her  who  had  so  nearly  been  his 
mother-in-law  to  say  exactly  where  the  blame  lay.  General 
incapacity  to  keep  what  was  morally  one's  own  perhaps 
covered  it,  and  incapacity  of  all  kinds  she  detested. 

These  visits  took  her  up  to  Scotland  about  the  middle  of 
August,  since  this  was  on  the  whole  the  easiest  way  of  not 
getting  out  of  touch  with  people.  Scotland,  if  one  went  to 
the  right  houses,  she  considered  to  be  a  sort  of  barometer 
as  to  the  way  people  would  behave,  and  the  general  trend 
of  affairs  go,  when  the  gatherings  began  for  the  autumn 
parties  in  England  and  people  came  up  to  London  in  the 
spring;  and  though  she  could  not  have  been  considered 
exactly  a  conventional  woman,  she  very  much  wanted  to 
know  what  kind  of  line  society  in  general  would  take  about 
Madge.  For  with  all  her  hard  shrewdness,  she  had  not 

243 


244  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

what  we  may  call  a  sensitive  social  touch.  When  Society 
beat  time  she  could  follow  it  with  scrupulous  exactitude,  but 
she  was  not  capable  of  conducting  herself.  And  this  con- 
certed piece  was  rather  complex,  and  though  Society  had 
been  so  unanimous  in  its  condemnation  at  the  time,  Lady 
Ellington,  knowing  it  pretty  well,  did  not  feel  at  all  sure 
that  the  sentence  it  passed  on  July  28th  would  not  be 
reprieved,  whether,  in  fact.  Society  would  not  say  that  there 
had  been  a  miscarriage  of  justice,  and  that  Madge — and 
Evelyn,  for  that  matter — were  entirely  innocent  and  even 
laudable.  For  if  Philip  had  wealth,  which  he  undoubtedly 
had,  and  Madge  had  thrown  that  overboard,  she  had  at 
any  rate  picked  up,  as  one  picks  up  a  pilot,  a  man  with  extra- 
ordinary charm  and  extraordinary  gifts,  about  whom  Society 
was  even  now  on  the  point  of  losing  its  head.  Evelyn,  in 
fact,  if  he  continued  to  be  as  gay  as  he  always  was,  to  enjoy 
himself  as  thoroughly,  and  also  continued  to  paint  pictures 
which  really  furnished  Society  with  conversation  to  quite  a 
remarkable  degree,  promised  well  to  be  as  desirable  a  hus- 
band as  the  other.  Also  Philip's  stern  attention  to  business 
during  the  month  of  August  had  done  his  cause,  as  has  been 
mentioned,  no  inconsiderable  damage.  Indeed  if  he  had 
married  old  Lady  Ellington  instead  it  perhaps  would  have 
been  more  suitable.  But  having  failed  to  secure  the  rose, 
he  had  not  shown  any  inclination  to  be  near  it,  and  had  gone 
to  the  City  instead. 

It  was  all  this  which  Lady  Ellington  hoped  to  pick  up  in 
Scotland.  She  wanted,  in  fact,  to  know  what  would  be  her 
most  correct  attitude  towards  Madge.  Her  own  personal  atti- 
tude she  knew  well  enough ;  she  was  still  quite  furious  with 
her.  But  (she  put  it  to  herself  almost  piously)  it  is  better 
sometimes  to  sink  the  personal  feeling  in  the  deep  waters  of 
the  public  good,  just  as  you  drown  a  superfluous  kitten. 
However  she  felt  privately,  it  might  be  kinder  and  wiser  to 
conceal  and  even  eradicate  that  personal  grudge.  She  went, 
in  fact,  in  order  to  see  whether  Society  was  possibly  taking 
a  more  Christian  line  about  her  daughter  than  her  daughter's 
mother  really  was.  Strange  as  the  fact  may  sound,  this  was 
the  fact,  for  it  would  never  do  that  Madge's  mother  should 
on  the  one  hand  be  estranged  from  her  daughter,  while  all 
the  world  embraced  her;  nor,  on  the  other,  that  Madge's 
mother  should  continue  to  embrace  her  daughter  while  all 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  245 

the  world  discreetly  looked  the  other  way  and  said  "  That 
minx !" 

Now,  as  has  already  been  briefly  stated,  the  country  ver- 
dict about  Madge,  the  verdict,  that  is  to  say,  of  London  gone 
into  the  country,  had  reaped  the  benefit  of  country  air  and 
early  hours.  The  personal  inconvenience  and  the  necessary 
incidental  chatter  had  died  down ;  nobody  really  cared  about 
it;  the  stern  condemnation  originally  made  was  felt  to  be 
but  a  hollow  voice,  and  Society,  which,  whatever  may  be 
said  about  it,  is  really  rather  indulgent,  just  as  it  hopes 
individually  for  indulgence,  in  that  most  unlikely  contingency 
of  indulgence  being  desirable,  was  already,  without  the 
slightest  sign  of  embarrassment,  executing  a  volte-face. 
For  if  the  volte-face  is  general,  the  only  embarrassment 
arises  from  not  executing  it.  And  Lady  Dover's  house, 
which,  so  to  speak,  kept  social  Greenwich  time  without  error, 
was  the  first  place  that  Lady  Ellington  visited. 

It  was  only  this  strong  sense  of  duty — duty  towards 
Madge — that  drew  her  there ;  otherwise  nothing  would  have 
induced  her  to  go.  There  was  a  night  in  the  train  and  a 
day  in  the  train,  and  at  the  end  of  that  a  thirty-mile  drive 
starting  from  a  spot  called  Golspie.  Her  experience  of 
Golspie  was  that  it  rained,  and  that  an  endless  road  stretched 
over  mile  after  mile  of  moor,  where  it  rained  worse  than  in 
Golspie.  But  in  Scotland  it  is  officially  supposed  never  to 
rain ;  the  utmost  that  can  happen  in  the  way  of  moisture  is 
that  it  should  be  "  saft."  She  arrived  at  Golspie,  an  open 
motor-car  was  waiting  for  her,  and  it  was  "  saft."  Also  the 
motor  could  not  take  all  her  luggage;  that  was  to  follow  in 
a  cart.  The  cart,  so  she  mentally  calculated,  if  it  did  not 
stick  in  a  bog  (not  a  wet  one,  only  a  "saft"  one)  might 
arrive  about  midnight.  Another  passenger  also  alighted  at 
Golspie;  the  present  bearer  of  her  husband's  title.  He  too 
was  going  to  Lady  Dover's,  and  the  motor  was  to  take  them 
both.  He  hazarded  that  this  was  "  awfully  jolly,"  but  he 
seemed  not  to  have  said  the  right  thing. 

The  softness  grew  softer  as  they  breasted  the  hills,  and 
Lady  Ellington  really  wondered  whether  this  was  worth 
while.  But  the  conclusion  must  have  been  that  it  was,  other- 
wise she  would  have  had  no  hesitation  in  turning  back  even 
now  and  sleeping  at  Golspie,  if  sleep  could  be  obtained  in 
so  outlandish  a  spot.  She  knew  well  too  what  her  week 


246  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

there  would  be;  a  Scotch  breakfast,  the  departure  of  the 
male  sex  to  the  hills,  with  fishing  "  in  the  burn  "  probably 
for  those  who  remained ;  the  return  of  the  male  sex  about 
six,  their  instant  dispersal  to  baths  and  their  own  rooms; 
dinner,  no  bridge,  but  conversation,  and  the  final  dispersal 
of  everybody  about  half-past  ten.  Yet  it  was  worth  it ; 
from  here,  goodness  knew  why,  ticked  out  the  "  correct 
attitude."  Lady  Dover's  opinion,  not  because  she  was  clever, 
so  said  her  guest  to  herself,  but  because  she  was  completely 
ordinary,  would  be  an  infallible  sign  as  to  what  the  rest 
of  the  world  would  think  about  Madge.  Assembled  at  her 
house  too  would  be  those  who,  right  and  left,  would  endorse 
Lady  Dover's  opinion,  not  because  she  had  intimated  it  to 
them,  but  because  they  would  naturally  think  as  she  did. 
It  was,  in  fact,  the  bourgeois  conclusion  of  the  upper  class 
that  she  sought. 

Bourgeois  conclusions  of  all  sorts  she  got  on  her  drive. 

"  Devilish  evening,  eh  ?"  said  Lord  Ellington.  "  Makes 
one  wonder  if  it's  worth  while.  Thirty  miles  of  this,  isn't 
it,  shofer?" 

"  Yes,  my  lord ;  thirty-two  miles." 

"  Well,  let's  get  on  a  bit ;  don't  you  think  so,  Lady  Elling- 
ton ?  Put  your  foot  down  on  some  of  those  pedals,  and  turn 
some  of  those  handles,  eh?  And  how's  all  going,  Lady 
Ellington?  Rum  thing;  there'll  be  two  Lady  Ellingtons  in 
the  house.  Gladys  arrived  three  days  ago.  I  couldn't. 
Detained,  don't  you  know.  I  always  say  detained,  eh?" 

All  this  anyhow  was  a  kind  of  olive  branch.  It  continued 
with  but  short  replies  on  her  part,  to  wave  in  the  wind. 

"  Awful  smash,  wasn't  it  ?"  continued  he.  "  Gladys  and 
I  were  very  sorry.  Good  fellow,  Home,  he  put  her — me — 
up  to  an  investment  or  two  that  turned  out  well.  But 
there's  no  telling  about  girls;  kittle  cattle,  you  know,  eh? 
I  daresay  she's  awfully  happy — what?  And  of  course  the 
man  doesn't  matter.  Men  are  meant  to  go  to  the  wall. 
Lord,  how  it  rains !" 

Lady  Ellington  did  not  really  mind  rain;  she  knew  too 
that  even  this  man,  whom  she  detested,  had  his  vote  in  public 
opinion,  and,  what  was  more,  he  reflected  public  opinion, 
like  some  newspaper.  What  he  said  other  people  would 
say.  She  did  not  in  the  least  want  the  vote  of  bohemian 
circles,  any  more  than  she  wanted  the  vote  of  bishops ;  what 


THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN  247 

she  wanted  to  know  was  the  general  opinion  of  her  class. 
A  most  elusive  thing  it  was,  and  one  on  which  it  was 
intensely  rash  to  risk  a  prophecy.  For  one  person  would  be 
found  with  a  stolen  halter  in  her  hand,  and  yet  no  one  would 
say  that  the  halter  was  dishonestly  come  by ;  another  would 
but  look  over  a  hedge,  and  the  whole  world  would  say  that 
the  design  was  to  steal  horse  and  halter  too.  To  which  class 
did  Madge,  with  her  calm  eyes,  belong  in  the  world's 
opinion  ? 

"  Yes,  of  course,  it  has  been  terrible,"  she  said.  "  My 
poor  girl  has  gone  so  utterly  astray.  What  could  have  been 
nicer  than  the  marriage  that  was  arranged?" 

"  Well,  she  seems  to  have  found  something  she  thought 
nicer,"  said  her  companion. 

"  Yes,  but  from  the  sensible  point  of  view.  Supposing 
you  fell  in  love  with  a  match  girl " 

Lord.  Ellington  gave  a  loud,  hoarse  laugh. 

"  Trust  Gladys  for  hoofing  her  out  of  it  in  double  quick 
time,"  he  remarked. 

Yet  this,  too,  was  what  Lady  Ellington  sought;  vulgar, 
hopeless  as  the  man  was,  he  yet  reflected  the  opinion  of  the 
average  person,  which  it  was  her  purpose  to  learn.  For  the 
votes  of  the  "  Moliere's  housemaids  "  will  always  swamp 
those  of  the  most  enlightened  critics,  and  the  popularity  of 
the  play  depends  on  them.  And  Lady  Dover's  house  was  a 
sort  of  central  agency  for  such  opinions ;  smart,  respectable, 
and  rich  people  congregated  there,  who  were  utterly  con- 
ventional, not  because  they  feared  Mrs.  Grundy,  but  because 
they  were  Mrs.  Grundy — she  herself,  and  no  coloured  imita- 
tion of  her.  The  good  old  home-brewed,  national,  typical, 
English  upper-class  view  of  life  might  here  really  be  said 
to  have  its  fountain  head,  and  to  have  stayed  in  the  house 
was  a  sort  of  certificate  that  you  were  all  right.  Scandal 
might,  just  possibly,  twitter  afterwards  about  some  one  of 
Lady  Dover's  guests ;  but  these  twitterings  would  be  harm- 
less, for  the  knowledge  that  he  or  she  about  whom  it  twit- 
tered had  stayed  at  Glen  Callan  would  convince  all  right- 
minded  people  that  there  was  nothing  in  it. 

It  was  after  eight  when  they  arrived,  and  when  they 
emerged  into  the  light  and  warmth  of  the  hall,  hung  round, 
as  was  suitable  in  the  Highlands,  with  rows  of  stags'  heads 
and  sporting  prints,  dinner  had  already  begun.  But  Lady 


248  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

Dover  came  out  of  the  dining-room  with  her  husband  to 
welcome  them. 

"  Dear  Lady  Ellington,"  she  said,  "  what  a  dreadful  drive 
you  must  have  had.  But  no  one  minds  rain  in  Scotland,  do 
they?  How  are  you,  Lord  Ellington?  So  nice  that  you 
could  come  together!  Gladys  arrived  two  days  ago.  Mr. 
Osborne  calls  her  the  fishmonger,  because  she  really  sup- 
plies us  all  with  fish;  we  are  now  eating  the  grilse  she 
caught  this  afternoon.  Take  Lord  Ellington  to  his  room, 
will  you,  Dover?  Pray  don't  make  anything  of  a  toilet, 
Lady  Ellington;  it  is  the  Highlands,  you  know.  We  went 
in  to  dinner  because  I  felt  sure  you  would  prefer  that  we 
should.  It  is  so  much  nicer  to  feel  that  one  is  keeping 
nobody  waiting,  is  it  not?" 

There  was  only  a  small  party  in  the  house,  so  Lady  Elling- 
ton found  when  she  joined  them  in  the  dining-room.  Mr. 
Osborne,  whose  brilliant  sobriquet  for  Gladys  has  already 
sparkled  on  these  pages,  was  there ;  he  was  a  very  wealthy 
man,  who  had  married  Lady  Angela  Harvey,  the  daughter 
of  a  Duke,  and  was  one  of  the  main  props  and  pillars  of 
English  Protestantism.  Lady  Angela  was  there  too,  thin- 
lipped  and  political,  sitting  next  Seymour  Dennison,  the 
Royal  Academician,  who  had  painted  and  exhibited  so  many 
miles  of  Sutherlandshire  scenery  that,  were  all  the  ordnance 
maps  lost,  it  might  almost  have  been  possible  to  reconstruct 
the  county  again  from  his  pictures  without  any  fresh  survey. 
His  wife,  of  course,  whom  he  had  only  lately  married,  was 
also  of  the  party;  Lady  Dover  had  not  previously  met  her, 
for  she  had  lived  in  Florence,  and  though  there  was  a  certain 
risk  about  asking  to  the  house  someone  who  was  really  quite 
unknown,  still  to  ask  Mr.  Dennison  without  his  wife  would 
have  been  to  stigmatise  her,  which  Lady  Dover  would  never 
do  without  good  reason.  Harold  Aintree,  a  first  cousin  of 
Lady  Dover's,  completed,  with  Gladys  and  her  husband,  the 
party  of  ten.  He,  too,  was  eminently  in  place,  for  he  was  a 
great  traveller  in  out-of-the-way  countries,  which  is  always 
considered  an  enlightened  pursuit.  Moreover,  you  could 
read  all  his  published  accounts  of  them  without  having  any 
sensibility  or  delicacy  offended.  Savage  tribes,  so  his  expe- 
riences showed,  and  Australian  aborigines,  had  a  true  and 
unfailing  sense  of  propriety. 

Lady  Ellington's  place  was  next  her  host,  and  as  she 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  249 

ate  the  grilse,  Lord  Dover  told  her  about  it.  Gladys  was  his 
cousin,  therefore  he  referred  to  her  by  her  Christian  name. 

"  Gladys  caught  that  grilse  only  this  afternoon,"  he  said. 
"  A  beautifully  fresh  fish,  is  it  not  ?  Mr.  Osborne  calls  her 
the  fishmonger.  Lady  Fishmonger  Ellington,  was  it  not, 
Osborne  ?" 

Mr.  Osborne  paused  in  his  conversation  with  Mrs.  Denni- 
son  to  bow  his  acknowledgments. 

"  But  Lady  Ellington  fishes  too,"  he  said.  "  We  shall  get 
into  terrible  confusion  now." 

"  Ah,  you  must  find  another  name  for  her,"  said  Lady 
Dover.  "  Is  it  not  a  beautiful  fish,  Lady  Ellington  ?  The 
flesh  is  so  firm.  Dover  says  it  could  not  have  been  up  from 
the  sea  more  than  a  day  or  two." 

Mr.  Osborne  resumed  his  talk  with  Mrs.  Dennison,  whom 
he  was  questioning  about  the  churches  in  Florence.  Other- 
wise there  was  a  moment's  pause  round  the  table,  which 
was  unfortunate,  as  she  just  then  referred  to 'the  Catholic 
churches,  meaning  the  Roman  Catholic  churches.  She  cor- 
rected her  error,  however,  oh  seeing  the  questioning  look  in 
his  face,  and  the  general  conversation  was  resumed. 

"  Yes,  the  sunset  was  one  sheet  of  intolerable  glory,"  said 
Seymour  Dennison  to  his  hostess,  "  and  how  little  one  ex- 
pected that  this  rain  was  coming.  What  a  wet  drive  Lady 
Ellington  must  have  had." 

"  I  did  not  see  the  sunset/'  said  she.  "  I  returned  to  write 
a  few  letters.  You  must  describe  it  to  us,  Mr.  Dennison, 
not  in  words  but  in  colours.  The  sunsets  here  this  year  have 
been  quite  remarkable.  They  have  been  so  very  varied ;  no 
two  alike,  so  far  as  I  have  seen." 

Seymour  Dennison  was  always  in  character  as  the  poetical 
interpreter  of  Nature.  His  words,  in  fact,  were  generally  as 
highly  coloured  as  his  canvases. 

"  And  yet  perhaps  the  finest  sunsets  one  ever  sees  are  at 
Hyde  Park  Corner,"  he  said.  "  Is  it  not  a  wonderful  thing 
how  Nature  takes  the  foul  smoke  of  our  cities,  and  by  that 
alchemy  of  light  transmutes  them  into  those  unimaginable 
spectacles  which  even  the  eye,  much  less  the  hand,  cannot 
fully  grasp  and  realise?  Light!  Where  would  the  world 
be  without  light?"  ' 

Lord  Ellington  had  a  moment's  spasmodic  desire  to  an- 
swer "  In  the  dark,"  but  he  checked  it.  It  was  as  well  he  did. 


250  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"That  dying  cry  of  Goethe's  is  so  wonderful,  is  it  not?" 
said  Lady  Angela,  turning  to  Harold  Aintree,  and  picking 
up  this  thread.  "  '  More  light,  more  light/  you  know." 

Harold  cleared  his  throat ;  he  seldom  spoke  except  in  para- 
graphs. 

"  It  is  extraordinary  how  the  most  savage  tribes  have  a 
deep  sense  of  natural  beauty,"  he  said.  "  I  remember  enter- 
ing a  settlement  in  Zambesi  at  evening,  and  finding  all  the 
inhabitants  sitting  in  rows  watching  the  setting  of  the  sun. 
It  appears  to  be  a  religious  ceremony,  akin  to  some  way  to 
the  sun-worship  of  the  Parsees.  Even  the  most  rudimentary 
civilisation — this  particular  tribe  of  the  Zambesi,  I  may  re- 
mind you,  are  cannibals — show  traces  of  some  appreciation 
of  the  beauties  of  Nature.  Indeed  one  almost  thinks  that 
perhaps  civilisation  obscures  that  appreciation.  Else  how 
do  we  in  England  consent  to  live  in  the  sordid  ugliness  of 
the  towns  we  build?" 

He  turned  half-left  as  he  spoke,  to  pick  up  Lady  Elling- 
ton, so  to  speak,  for  Lord  Dover  had  crossed  over  to  Gladys, 
with  whom  he  was  again  discussing  the  grilse  she  had  been 
so  fortunate  as  to  catch  that  afternoon. 

"  Ah,  but  we  don't  all  live  in  cities,  Mr.  Aintree,"  she  said, 
"  and  I  think  that  there  is  a  great  return  to  simplicity  going 
on.  Don't  you  remember  last  July  how  we  all  took  to  lentils 
and  no  hats?  And  think  of  Mr.  Merivale,  who  lives  in  the 
New  Forest,  you  know,  and  makes  birds  come  and  sit  on  his 
hand.  We  went  down  there,  you  know,  Madge  and  I,  and 
saw  it  all." 

The  simplification  of  life,  therefore,  took  the  place  of  sun- 
sets, and  spread  slowly  round  the  table,  moving  with  a  steady 
sort  of  current;  there  was  nothing  that  flashed  or  sparkled, 
Mr.  Osborne  only  suggesting  that  if  we  all  went  to  live  in 
the  country  it  would  become  as  bad  as  a  town,  and  if  we  all 
lived  on  lentils,  the  price  would  go  up  so  much  that  few 
could  afford  it.  Lady  Ellington,  however,  cleared  those 
small  matters  up,  gave  it  to  be  understood  that  Mr.  Merivale 
owed  a  good  deal  to  her  suggestions,  and  rather  congratu- 
lated herself  on  having  got  Madge's  name  introduced. 

Dinner  over,  a  variety  of  innocent  pursuits  occupied  the 
party.  Mr.  Dennison,  with  a  good  deal  of  address,  did  some 
conjuring  tricks  (the  same  as  he  had  dene  last  night  and  the 
night  before,  and  would  do  again  next  night  and  the  night 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  251 

after),  Lord  Dover  continued  to  discuss  Gladys'  grilse  (it 
was  such  a  fresh-run  fish)  with  various  members  of  the 
party,  and  at  ten  o'clock  was  held  what  was  called  the 
"  council  of  war,"  though  why  "  war  "  was  not  quite  clear, 
since  the  purposes  of  it  were  wholly  pacific,  and  merely 
consisted  in  the  discussion  of  plans  for  the  next  day.  Lord 
Ellington,  it  was  settled,  should  try  for  a  stag,  Mr. 
Osborne  and  his  host  were  to  go  grouse-shooting  together, 
Mr.  Dennison  would  be  amply  occupied  in  recording  the 
upper  beauties  of  the  Glen — he  had  not  as  yet  painted 
more  than  three-quarters  of  a  mile  of  it — Lady  Angela 
and  Mrs.  Dennison  were  to  drive  over  and  see  some 
friends  in  the  neighbourhood,  while  it  was  universally 
acclaimed  that  Lady  Fishmonger  Ellington  should  again  ex- 
ercise her  remarkable  skill  on  the  river.  And  on  old  Lady 
Ellington's  saying  that  she  would  like  to  fish  too,  Mr. 
Osborne  rose  to  the  occasion. 

"  We  already  have  Lady  Grilse  Ellington,"  he  said,  "  and 
I  am  sure  to-morrow  evening  we  shall  have  Lady  Salmon 
Ellington." 

This  brought  the  council  of  war  to  a  really  epigrammatic 
ending,  and  Lady  Dover  rose  with  her  customary  speech. 

"  We  all  go  to  bed  very  early  here,  Lady  Ellington,"  she 
said.  "  Being  out  all  day  in  the  fresh  air  makes  one  sleepy. 
What  is  the  glass  doing,  Dover?" 

"  Going  up  a  bit." 

"  Then  let  us  hope  you  will  have  a  fine  day  to-morrow 
for  your  painting,  Mr.  Dennison.  I  shall  come  up  the  Glen 
with  you  in  the  morning,  if  you  will  let  me,  and  go  down  to 
the  river  after  lunch  to  see  what  the  fishmongers — I  beg 
their  pardon,  it  is  Lady  Salmon  and  Lady  Grilse,  is  it  not  ? — 
have  done." 

Before  half-past  ten  therefore  all  the  ladies  were  in  their 
rooms,  and  since  breakfast  was  not  till  a  quarter  to  ten  next 
morning,  it  might  be  hoped  that  they  would  all  sleep  off  the 
effects  of  being  out  all  day  in  the  fresh  air.  And  though 
Lady  Ellington  did  not  feel  in  the  least  inclined  to  go  to  her 
room,  and  almost  everywhere  else  would  have  sat  up  as  long 
as  she  chose,  obliging,  if  necessary,  her  hostess  to  sit  up  too, 
she  never  at  Glen  Callan  found  herself  equal  to  proposing 
any  other  arrangements  than  those  which  were  made  for  her, 
or  indeed  of  criticising  anything.  For  there  was  a  deadly 


252  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

regularity  about  everything,  against  which  it  was  useless  to 
rebel,  and  to  dream  of  suggesting  anything  was  an  unthink- 
able attitude  to  adopt.  She  knew,  too,  exactly  what  would 
happen  now,  just  as  she  had  known  speeches  about  the 
barometer  would  precede  their  going  upstairs.  Lady  Dover, 
since  it  was  her  first  night,  would  come  with  her  to  her  room, 
ask  her  if  she  had  everything  she  wanted,  poke  the  fire  for 
her,  and  say,  "  Well,  I  am  sure  you  must  be  tired  after  your 
journey.  I  will  leave  you  to  get  a  good  rest.  Breakfast  at 
a  quarter  to  ten,  or  would  you  sooner  have  it  in  your  room  ?" 

But  Lady  Ellington  felt  she  would  probably  be  equal  to 
facing  the  world  again  after  eleven  hours  of  retirement,  and 
said  she  would  come  down. 

"  It  is  a  movable  feast,  dear,"  said  Lady  Dover,  as  she 
went  out ;  "  in  fact,  we  do  not  think  punctuality  at  all  a  virtue 
at  breakfast." 

And  a  small  but  certain  suspicion  darted  into  Lady  Elling- 
ton's mind  that  her  hostess  had  said  exactly  the  same  thing 
to  her  just  a  year  ago,  when  she  came  to  Glen  Callan.  She 
wondered  how  often  she  had  said  it  since. 


Breakfast  was  a  very  bright  and  cheerful  meal  at  Glen 
Callan ;  everyone  was  refreshed  by  his  long  night  after  the 
day  in  the  fresh  air  and  ready  for  another  one.  Lady  Grilse 
and  Lady  Salmon  were  already  spoken  of  by  the  very  clever 
names  that  Mr.  Osborne  had  found  for  them,  and  he  further 
seemed  inclined  to  christen  Lord  Ellington  as  Lord  Stag. 
But  the  dreary  amazement  in  that  gentleman's  face  when  Mr. 
Osborne  made  soundings  on  this  point  prevented  its  total 
success,  though  Dennison  considered  it  excellent.  He  him- 
self, though  he  had  to  walk  but  half  a  mile  along  a  nearly 
level  road  to  the  particular  point  where  he  was  painting,  had 
so  keen  a  sense  of  local  colour,  that,  in  deference  to  the  fact 
that  this  road  was  in  Scotland,  he  had  put  on  knickerbockers, 
a  Norfolk  jacket,  and  thick  shooting-boots.  The  Norfolk 
jacket  also  had  a  leather  pad  on  the  shoulder,  so  that  the 
cloth  should  not  be  soiled  by  contact  with  possible  oil  on  the 
barrels  of  his  gun.  But  since  he  never  carried  nor  had  ever 
used  a  gun,  this  precaution  was  almost  unnecessary.  Still 
there  is  no  harm  in  being  prepared  for  any  contingency,  how- 
ever unlikely. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  253 

The  morning  was  cloudy  but  fine,  and  the  clouds  were 
high.  In  front  of  the  windows  of  the  dining-room  the 
ground  fell  sharply  away  into  the  glen,  through  which 
brawled  the  coffee-coloured  water  of  the  river  where  the  two 
ladies  were  to  fish,  and  Mr.  Dennison,  as  he  walked  about 
eating  his  porridge,  a  further  recognition  to  the  fact  that  this 
was  Scotland,  drew  attention  to  the  beautiful  contrasts  of 
green  and  russet  in  the  glen.  He  also  mislaid  the  spoon  with 
which  he  had  intended  to  eat  his  porridge,  and  after  drawing 
attention  to  his  loss,  apparently  drew  the  spoon  out  of  Mr. 
Osborne's  breast  pocket.  He  was  accustomed  to  be  the  life 
and  soul  of  the  party,  and  had  equal  command  over  the 
flowers  of  language  and  the  easier  feats  of  sleight  of  hand. 
The  flowers  of  language  were  his  next  preoccupation,  for 
Lady  Dover  had  hoped  that  there  would  be  enough  sun  for 
him  to  work  at  his  picture. 

"  We  landscape  painters,"  he  said,  "  are  terribly  at  the 
mercy  of  the  elements.  We  may  perhaps  half-grasp  a  con- 
ception, a  cloudy  effect,  it  may  be,  and  then  we  are  given  a 
fortnight  of  bright  and  blazing  sunshine.  What  are  we  to 
do  ?  Begin  another  picture  ?  Ah,  that  is  to  let  the  first  con- 
ception fade.  I  spent  a  month  once  in  Skye  watching  for  an 
effect  I  had  seen  ten  years  before.  Not  a  stroke  of  the  brush 
did  I  make  all  that  month ;  I  waited.  Then  one  morning  it 
came." 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  Quite  a  small  picture,"  he  said,  "  and  I  sold  it  for  a 
song.  But  my  reward  was  the  fact  that  I  had  waited  for  it. 
That  was  my  imperishable  possession ;  my  character,  my 
artistic  character,  was  at  stake.  And  I  won ;  yes,  I  won." 

Lady  Dover  broke  in  upon  the  sympathetic  pause. 

"  But  a  portrait-painter,  Mr.  Dennison,"  she  said ;  "  surely 
he  may  have  to  wait  also  for  the  same  look  to  appear  on  the 
face  of  his  sitter.  Is  not  the  sitter  as  fickle  as  the  clouds  or 
the  sun?" 

Dennison  had  finished  his  porridge,  and  was  seated  on 
Lady  Dover's  left.  He  drew  with  his  long  white  forefinger 
a  few  imagined  lines  in  the  air. 

"  No,  I  don't  think  so,"  he  said.  "  There  are  the  features ; 
the  light  can  be  adjusted.  You  have  but  to  awake  again 
the  train  of  thought  that  was  in  the  sitter's  mind,  and  the 
expression,  which  after  all  is  only  a  matter  of  line,  becomes 


254  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

the  same  again.  Look  at  Dundas's  pictures,  for  instance. 
I  do  not  deny  their  merit;  but  what  is  there?  Five  sweeps 
of  the  brush  is  the  face,  literally  no  more.  A  piece  of  mere 
scene-painting  is  the  background,  a  bunch  of  bananas  is 
the  hand,  I  assure  you,  a  bunch  of  bananas.  That  would 
not  be  my  scheme  if  I  was  a  portrait  painter.  I  should  study 
my  sitter  till  the  very  finger-nails  were  an  integral  part  of 
the  picture,  so  that  the  picture  would  be  incomplete  without 
them.  Poor  Dundas,  I  think  we  have  heard  the  last  of  him. 
This  terrible " 

The  silence  that  succeeded  this  unfortunate  speech  was 
one  that  might,  like  darkness,  be  felt.  Mr.  Dennison,  in- 
toxicated by  his  own  voice,  had  "  forgotten."  The  silence 
made  him  remember.  But  the  silence,  though  pregnant, 
was  of  almost  infinitesimal  duration,  for  Lord  Dover  imme- 
diately resorted  to  the  grilse  caught  the  day  before,  which 
was  now  kedgeree ;  his  wife  from  the  other  end  of  the  table, 
and  without  consultation,  recommended  Mr.  Osborne  to  try 
it,  and  Lady  Angela  looked  forward  in  anticipation  to  the 
lovely  views  that  she  and  Mrs.  Dennison  were  certain  to 
enjoy  during  their  drive.  But  this  instinctive  buzz  to  bury 
what  had  gone  before  died  down, and  the  dead  subject  seemed 
like  to  have  a  disconcerting  and  resurging  silence.  But 
Lady  Dover,  whose  mind  was  already  made  up  on  this  sub- 
ject, indicated  her  attitude.  She  turned  to  Lady  Ellington, 
who  sat  three  places  from  her,  and  in  her  quiet  voice  the 
social  oracle  thundered  prophecy  and  promise — 

"  And  how  is  dear  Madge,  Lady  Salmon  ?"  she  said.  "  I 
wonder  if  we  could  induce  her  and  Mr.  Dundas  to  come  for 
a  week  or  two  before  we  go  south?  It  would  be  such  a 
pleasure.  She  would  enjoy  these  beautiful  walks,  I  am  sure, 
and  Mr.  Dundas  must  be  so  very  hard-worked  that  I  am 
certain  a  little  holiday  would  do  him  good." 

That  was  the  pronunciamento  for  which  Lady  Elling- 
ton really  had  come  here,  weighing  light  all  the  discomfort 
of  travel  and  the  dulness  of  the  days  that  she  anticipated. 
It  had  been  forced,  squirted  as  it  were,  out  of  her  hostess, 
but  nobody  had  ever  squirted  out  of  Lady  Dover  anything 
insincere.  She  often,  in  fact,  refrained  from  saying  all  she 
meant,  but  she  never  said  what  she  did  not  mean.  Her  word 
was  as  good  as  the  bond  of  anybody  else's;  it  was  trust- 
worthy coinage,  sterling  in  its  own  dominions.  And  Lady 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  255 

Ellington  accepted  it  as  such,  not  ringing  it  or  testing  it  in 
any  way.  That  it  was  given  her  was  quite  enough. 

"  I  am  sure  Madge  would  love  to  come,"  she  said,  "  if  she 
can  only  tear  " — she  could  not  help  hesitating  a  moment — 
"  tear  dear  Evelyn  away  from  his  work.  He  is  so  busy ; 
everybody  wants  to  be  painted  by  him.  And  I'm  sure  I  don't 
wonder.  His  portrait  of  Madge!  It  is  too  extraordinary! 
You  expect  her  to  get  down  from  the  easel  and  say  some- 
thing characteristic.  The  hands,  too,  surely,  Mr.  Dennison, 
you  don't  think  the  hands  are  like  bunches  of  bananas  in 
Mr.  Dundas's  picture  of  my  daughter?" 

Mr.  Dennison  had  not  seen  the  picture;  he  hastened  also 
to  qualify  what  he  had  said  before.  The  qualification  did 
not  fare  quite  so  well  at  his  hands  as  the  missing  spoon 
had  done.  That  in  itself  was  not  extraordinary,  since  there 
was  no  comparison  between  the  respective  difficulties  of 
effecting  these  two  disappearances.  But  breakfast  was 
practically  over,  and  the  need  for  beating  a  further  retreat 
was  thus  reduced  to  an  irreducible  minimum. 

The  shooters  and  the  stalker  went  their  ways  immediately, 
the  motor-car  was  also  soon  round  to  convey  Lady  Angela 
and  Mrs.  Dennison  to  their  friends,  and  it  was  not  extra- 
ordinary that  the  artist  did  not  join  the  remainder  of  the 
party  on  the  terrace.  Gladys  also  had  gone  to  consult  with 
the  gillie  on  the  question  of  flies,  and  thus  in  ten  minutes 
Lady  Dover  and  Lady  Ellington  were  alone  in  their  after- 
breakfast  stroll.  The  latter,  as  usual,  went  straight  to  the 
point;  she  did  not  want  to  talk  about  salmon  pools  and 
rowan-berries  or  the  prospects  of  slain  stags ;  she  had  come 
here  to  find  out  what  Lady  Dover  thought  about  Madge. 
For  this  purpose  she  called  Lady  Dover  by  her  Christian 
name,  as  one  has  to  begin  some  time.  Her  Christian  name 
was  Susan,  a  name  inimical  for  confidences,  but  it  could 
not  be  helped  now. 

"  Oh,  Susan,"  she  said,  "  you  don't  mind  my  calling  you 
that,  do  you,  because  I  feel  such  friends  with  you.  You 
have  no  idea  how  relieved  I  am.  I  wanted  so  much  to  know 
what  you  thought  about  poor  Madge,  and  I  should  have 
found  it  so  hard  to  begin,  unless  you  had  said  what  you  did 
say  at  breakfast  about  asking  them  here.  Of  course  it  was 
all  a  terrible  grief  to  me,  you  can  well  understand  that." 

"  Yes,  dear  ?"  said  Lady  DQver  interrogatively. 


256  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

"  I  know  you  see  what  I  mean.  The  marriage  with  Philip 
Home  was  so  nice,  so  suitable,  and  it  was  all  arranged 
People  stopped  in  London  particularly  for  it." 

Lady  Dover's  calm  eyes  surveyed  the  terrace,  the  glen, 
.and  lastly  her  companion. 

"  But  surely  that  is  rather  a  conventional  view  to  take," 
she  said.  "  What  does  a  little  inconvenience  matter,  if  your 
daughter's  happiness  is  secured  ?  I  am  told  they  are  devoted 
to  each  other." 

Now  Lady  Ellington  in  her  most  wild  and  wayward 
dreams  had  never  conceived  it  possible  that  she  could  be 
called,  or  remotely  labelled,  "  conventional  "  by  Susan.  She 
had  much  to  learn,  however. 

"  I  hope  I  am  not  a  slave  to  convention,  or  anything  of 
the  sort,"  continued  Lady  Dover ;  "  but  if  Madge  really 
loved  Mr.  Dundas,  why  on  earth  should  she  not  marry  him  ? 
Suppose  she  had  married  Mr.  Home,  and  found  out  after- 
wards she  was  not  really  fond  of  him?  One  does  not  like 
to  contemplate  such  things;  there  is  a  certain  suspicion  of 
coarseness  even  in  the  thought.  I  do  not  know  what  the 
view  of  the  world  may  be,  for  the  view  of  the  world  con- 
cerns me  very  little,  but  I  feel  quite  sure  that  a  girl  is  right 
in  obeying  the  dictates  of  her  own  heart." 

Lady  Ellington  longed  to  contradict  all  this;  it  was  not 
in  the  least  in  accord  with  what  she  felt,  and  what  she  felt 
she  was  accustomed  to  state.  Thus  the  suppression  of  it 
was  not  easy. 

"  How  lovely  those  lights  on  the  hillside  are,"  said  Lady 
Dover,  in  parenthesis.  "  Mr.  Dennison  ought  to  see  them 
before  he  settles  on  the  subject  of  his  next  picture.  Yes, 
about  Madge.  I  don't  know  what  other  people  think  about 
it  all,  I  only  know  what  I  think,  and  I  am  sure  Dover  agrees 
with  me.  It  was  a  love  match,  was  it  not?  What  more  do 
you  want?  Of  course  if  Mr.  Home  had  been  a  duke  and 
Madge  a  girl  without  any  position " 

"  You  mean  it  is  just  a  question  of  degree  ?"  asked  Lady 
Ellington. 

"  Ah,  my  dear — er — Margaret,"  said  Lady  Dover,  with  a 
certain  intonation  of  relief,  because  she  was  sure  that  her 
excellent  memory  had  not  played  her  false,  "  everything  is 
a  question  of  degree ;  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  into 
which  circumstances,  nrft%ating  or  the  reverse,  do  not  enter. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  257 

How  beautiful  the  rowan-berries  are,  I  wish  Mr.  Dennison 
could  see  them.  They  would  work  into  his  foreground  so 
well.  I  must  take  him  to  the  end  of  the  terrace  to-morrow. 
Yes;  but  the  mitigating  circumstances  are  here  so  strong. 
She  threw  over  Mr.  Home,  who  is  charming — I  met  him 
twice  last  year  at  dinner  somewhere,  and  we  asked  him  to 
lunch,  only  he  could  not  come — and  has  married  a  man  who 
is  charming  also,  with  whom  she  fell  in  love.  How  vivid 
his  portraits  are,  too ;  I  am  going  to  be  painted  by  him  next 
spring,  if  he  can  find  time.  Almost  too  vivid,  perhaps ;  they 
seem  to  jump  out  on  you.  But  that  is  my  view  about  the 
whole  question.  Supposing  she  had  married  Mr.  Home, 
and  had  fallen  in  love  afterwards !  That  sort  of  tragedy  is 
so  dreadful ;  such  extraordinary  cleverness  is  required  to 
avoid  all  the  horror  of  publicity.  I  could  never  survive 
publicity." 

"  But  there  is  publicity  as  it  is,"  said  Lady  Ellington. 
"  Poor  Madge !  What  will  people  think  of  her  ?  And  of 
me?" 

Lady  Dover  throughout  this  conversation  had  given  justi- 
fication after  justification  for  the  importance  that  Lady 
Ellington  attached  to  her  verdict.  She  gave  more  now. 

"  There  is  publicity,  it  is  true,"  she  said ;  "  but  no  sense 
of  respectability  has  been  offended.  Of  her,  they  will  think 
that  she  fell  in  love  and  followed  her  instincts.  Of  you,, 
they  will  think  that  you  tried,  like  an  excellent  mother,  to 
secure  an  excellent  match  for  your  daughter,  but  that  your 
daughter  chose  for  herself." 

Lady  Dover's  serene  face  grew  a  shade  more  shrewd. 

"  You  see,  she  has  not  married  Tom  or  Dick  or  James," 
she  said.  "  Mr.  Dundas,  in  fact,  is  a  sufficiently  important 
person.  Was  it  that  you  meant,  by  the  way,  by  saying  it 
was  a  question  of  degree?  I  don't  know  what  his  income 
is;  it  may  be  precarious.  But  he  has  great  talent.  And 
talent  happens  to  be  rather  fashionable.  I  daresay  it  is  only 
a  phase,  but  after  all  one  wants,  if  the  sacrifice  of  no  prin- 
ciple is  involved,  to  be  abreast  with  the  world." 

Now  Lady  Ellington  could  not  possibly  have  been  called 
a  conceited  woman,  and  her  conviction  that  she  was  herself 
pretty  well  abreast  of  the  world  was  founded  on  sober  ex- 
perience. She  was  up  to  most  things,  in  fact;  the  world, 
on  the  whole,  did  not  worst  her.  Yet  when  Susan  spoke  of 


258  THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

being  abreast  of  the  world,  she  was  conscious  that  another 
plane  altogether  was  indicated,  a  plane  to  which  she  had  to 
struggle  and  aspire,  whereas  Susan  moved  quite  easily  and 
naturally  on  it.  All  the  way  from  Golspie  she  had  been 
labeling  her  hostess  as  conventional,  but  what  if  this  con- 
ventionalism came  out  on  the  other  side,  so  to  speak,  and 
was  really  the  summit  of  worldly  wisdom,  a  peak,  not  a 
mediocre  plateau,  where  Susan  and  others  walked  gently 
about,  as  at  some  place  of  corrective  waters,  exchanging 
commonplaces.  For  Lady  Dover,  she  was  beginning  to  see, 
was  not  in  the  least  conventional  because  it  was  the  way  of 
the  world ;  she  was  conventional  because  she  was  made  like 
that.  It  was  the  world,  in  fact,  which  was  conventional 
because  it  was  like  Lady  Dover,  not  Lady  Dover  who  was 
conventional  because  she  was  like  the  world.  Indeed  she 
had  spoken  no  more  than  the  truth  when  she  said  the  opinion 
of  the  world  did  not  matter  to  her — it  did  not ;  she  never  had 
to  take  it  into  consideration,  simply  because  it  was  quite 
certain  to  coincide  with  her  own.  And  Lady  Ellington  found 
herself  thinking  that  when  Susan  died  her  portrait  ought 
really  to  be  put  in  a  stained  glass  window,  a  figure  that 
should  typify  for  all  time  the  solid,  respectable,  virtuous 
aspects  of  the  British  aristocracy. 

They  walked  in  silence  for  a  few  moments,  for  there  was 
really  nothing  more  to  say  on  the  subject.  Then  Lady  Ell- 
ington took  Susan's  arm  and  pressed  it. 

"  It  is  a  great,  great  relief  to  me  to  know  you  feel  like 
that,"  she  said,  "  and  you  have  made  my  line  with  regard  to 
Madge  so  clear.  Poor  Madge,  I  have  been  too  hard  on  her, 
but  the  disappointment  was  so  great.  I  could  not  help  feel- 
ing for  Philip,  too." 

"  Of  course  one  is  always  sorry  for  people  in  trouble," 
said  Lady  Dover,  "particularly  if  it  is  not  their  fault.  I 
will  write  to  Madge  this  morning.  And  now,  do  you  know, 
it  is  almost  time  you  went  off  to  the  river.  I  insist  on  your 
being  Lady  Salmon  by  this  evening.  Mr.  Osborne  is  so 
quick  and  clever,  is  he  not?" 


SEVENTEENTH 


DOVER  put  into  instant  execution  her  prom- 
ise  to  ask  Madge  and  her  husband  to  come  and  stay, 
and  half  an  hour  later  set  off  with  Mr.  Dennison 
up  the  glen  to  the  scene  of  his  picture;  the  "origi- 
nal," as  she  called  it.  As  usual,  in  her  interview  with  Lady 
Ellington  she  had  behaved  quite  straightforwardly,  and  had 
expressed  and  acted  on  the  view  which  she  believed  to  be 
right,  and  though  she  could  not  help  feeling  that  Lady 
Ellington  had  referred  to  her  rather  as  an  oracle,  whose 
slightest  word  was  a  thing  to  be  treasured  up  and  reverently 
commented  on,  she  was  not  naturally  at  all  self-conscious, 
and  did  not  dwell  on  the  fact  with  any  elation.  Elation 
indeed  she  could  not  possibly  have  felt,  since,  had  she  been 
pressed  to  say  how  highly  she  valued  Lady  Ellington's 
opinion,  she  would  have  been  forced  to  confess  that,  without 
wishing  to  be  unkind,  she  did  not  value  it  at  all.  Secretly, 
indeed,  her  estimate  was  that  poor  Margaret  wanted  very 
much  to  be  a  woman  of  .the  world,  and  only  succeeded  in 
being  a  worldly  woman;  she  schemed  (she  had  no  doubt 
schemed  in  the  matter  of  Madge's  marriage)  and  span 
threads  in  all  directions,  with  the  unfortunate  result  that 
she  only  succeeded  in  getting  entangled  in  them  herself. 
Lady  Dover,  on  the  other  hand,  never  schemed  at  all;  she 
walked  calmly  along  a  broad  highroad  and  admired  the 
flowers  by  the  wayside.  Consequently  she  was  invariably 
free  from  preoccupations,  and  could  talk  with  the  artist 
about  the  exquisite  lights  and  shadows  on  the  hillside  and 
the  wonderful  contrast  of  the  purple  heather  against  the 
golden  gorse  with  sincerity  and  attention.  It  was  quite  pos- 
sible also  that  they  might  see  an  eagle ;  one  had  been  seen  at 
the  top  of  the  glen  several  times  that  year. 

Lady  Ellington  as  she  went  down  with  Gladys  to  the  river 
felt  more  herself  than  she  had  felt  ever  since  that  stormy 
interview  with  Madge  in  the  New  Forest.  A  sense  of  im- 

259 


260  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

perfect  mastery  had  begun  then,  terminating,  on  Madge's 
visit  to  the  studio,  in  a  terribly  certain  conviction  that  she 
had  no  mastery  at  all.  Madge,  in  fact,  had  made  a  fool  of 
her,  and  her  resentment  at  it  was  impotent.  She  felt,  too, 
that  the  world  very  likely  regarded  her  with  a  sort  of  amused 
pity,  which  was  hard  to  bear.  But  she  felt  sure  now  after 
this  interview  that  the  world  was  going  to  forgive  Madge 
and  her  husband,  and  welcome  them  to  its  midst.  Her  own 
course  of  conduct  therefore  was  clear,  she  must  quite  cer- 
tainly do  the  same,  and  if  possible  let  it  be  understood  that 
she  had,  though  sorry  for  Philip,  realised  that  this  marriage 
was  inevitable.  Lady  Dover  had  put  this  so  plainly;  how 
much  better  that  their  mutual  love  should  be  discovered  be- 
fore the  irremediable  mistake  of  Madge's  marriage  with 
Philip  had  been  made.  And  since  she  was  a  woman  who 
never  wasted  time  or  anything  else,  she  began  immediately 
to  lay  the  foundations  of  this  remarkably  imaginative  struc- 
ture before  Gladys. 

"  Poor  Mr.  Dennison,"  she  said,  "  I  was  so  sorry  for  him 
at  breakfast  when  he  said  he  thought  we  had  heard  the  last 
of  Evelyn.  I  am  always  sorry  for  people  who  put  their  foot 
in  it.  But  I  suppose  that  would  be  the  middle-class  view  of 
poor  Madge's  marriage.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  Mr.  Dennison 
is  not  quite  a  gentleman." 

This  was  so  calm  and  glorious  a  disregard  of  all  that  she 
had  previously  said,  thought,  and  felt,  that  the  very  com- 
pleteness of  it  roused  Gladys's  admiration.  Lady  Ellington 
took  her  previous  attitude  off,  like  a  pair  of  gloves,  just 
threw  it  into  the  gutter,  and  walked  on.  Gladys  knew  it 
must  have  been  Lady  Dover's  pronouncement  that  had 
caused  this  change,  for  she  too  was  aware  that  the  social 
Greenwich  time  was  largely  taken  from  Glen  Callan,  and  had 
made  a  mental  note,  just  as  Madge's  mother  had  done,  that 
she  must  also  alter  her  own  time  by  this.  It  clearly  would  be 
too  ridiculous  if  all  London  welcomed  them  back  with  open 
arms,  and  only  Madge's  family  turned  their  backs  on  her. 
But  she  had  a  certain  Puck-like  sense  of  malice,  particularly 
when  she  could  exercise  it  on  Lady  Ellington,  and  she  could 
not  resist  a  little  tap  or  two  now. 

"  I  am  so  glad  you  take  it  like  that,"  she  said,  "  and  see  it 
as  Lady  Dover  does.  At  first,  you  know,  I  thought  you  were 
being  too  bitter  about  it,  and  really,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  I 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  261 

had  no  idea  that  you  were  taking   Madge's  part.     Dear 
Madge ;  I  hope  they  will  ask  her  soon,  while  I  am  still  here." 

"  Of  course  I  was  bitter  about  it  at  first,"  said  Lady  El- 
lington. "  Who  could  help  being,  when  all  my  plans  were 
upset,  and  poor  Philip  Home  was  suffering  too  ?  I  was  more 
sorry  for  him  than  for  anybody  else.  I  had  to  tell  him,  you 
know,  and  had  a  terrible  interview  with  him.  But  I  soon 
saw  that  since  Madge  was  not  in  love  with  him,  but  with 
Evelyn,  it  was  a  thousand  times  better  that  we  should  all 
suffer  that  purely  temporary  disturbance  and  worry  than  that 
she  should  be  in  the  dreadfully  false  position  of  being  mar- 
ried to  one  man  while  she  was  in  love  with  another." 

Gladys  purred  a  rather  feline  approval. 

"  How  glad  dear  Madge  must  have  been  when  you  told 
her  how  you  felt,"  she  said.  "  I  wish  I  had  been  there  when 
you  made  it  up  with  her.  Who  is  it  who  says  something 
about  the  '  blessings  on  the  falling  out  which  all  the  more 
endears' ;  it  must  have  been  quite  like  that." 

Lady  Ellington  met  this  as  well  as  she  could,  though  it 
was  rather  awkward. 

"  Yes,  I  think  Madge  will  be  perfectly  happy,"  she  saidr 
"  now  she  finds  that  everyone  is  quite  as  nice  as  ever  to  her." 

"  Dear  Madge,  I  never  felt  different  to  her,"  said  Gladys 
rather  imprudently. 

Lady  Ellington  jumped  on  to  this  with  extraordinary 
quickness  and  precision. 

"  Ah,  I  am  glad  to  know  that,"  she  said,  "  because  I  now 
also  know  that  Lady  Taverner  must  have  simply  invented  a 
quantity  of  things  that  she  said  you  had  said  to  her  about  it. 
I  felt  sure  you  could  not  have  been  so  unkind." 

So  the  honours  on  the  whole  were  pretty  well  divided;, 
each  of  them  saw  through  the  other,  and  since  each  deter- 
mined to  write  to  Madge  that  night,  it  was  highly  likely  that 
Madge  would  see  through  them  both. 

Mr.  "Osborne  proved  to  be  a  true  prophet,  and  it  was  in- 
deed Lady  Salmon  and  Lady  Grilse  who  came  back  from  the 
river  about  tea-time.  He  had  the  good  luck  to  be  in  the  hall 
when  they  returned,  and  preceded  Lady  Ellington  to  the 
drawing-room,  where  he  threw  open  the  door  for  her  to 
enter  in  the  manner  of  a  butler,  and  announced  loudly — 

"  Lady  Salmon  Ellington,  my  lady." 

Lady  Grilse  also  had  vindicated  her  name  again,  and  when 


262  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

after  tea  they  played  the  game  at  which  one  person  goes  out 
of  the  room,  and  on  return  has  to  guess  by  mere  "  Yes  "  or 
"No  "  what  has  been  thought  of;  Mr.  Osborne,  on  learning 
that  they  had  thought  of  fish,  instantly  guessed  "  Salmon," 
which  proved  to  be  right.  Satisfactory  reports  also  came 
from  the  grouse  shooters ;  the  two  ladies  had  had  a  charming 
drive ;  Mr.  Dennison  had  caught  an  effect  of  a  highly  pleas- 
ing kind,  and  though  Lord  Ellington  had  missed  his  stag,  it 
was  felt  that  Mr.  Osborne  was  in  tune  with  the  general 
cheerfulness  when  he  said  that  after  all  that  was  next  best 
to  hitting  it.  Indeed  Mr.  Osborne  was  in  extremely  fine 
form  altogether,  and  Lady  Dover,  as  she  went  upstairs  with 
his  wife  at  about  half-past  six,  as  it  was  refreshing  after  the 
day  in  the  air  to  lie  down  for  an  hour  or  so  before  dinner, 
said  that  she  knew  no  one  so  entertaining  as  her  husband. 
Then,  since  Mrs.  Dennison  was  with  them,  she  added: 

"  And  Mr.  Dennison  has  promised  to  show  us  a  new  con- 
juring trick  this  evening.  I  can't  think  how  he  does  them. 
So  very  clever.  And  what  a  resource  in  the  evening;  I  am 
sure  I  should  never  be  dull  if  he  would  conjure  for  me 
always  after  dinner." 

It  was  during  this  last  week  of  August,  which  saw  this 
party  at  Glen  Callan,  that  in  point  of  chronology  Philip  broke 
down  as  recorded,  and  went  to  the  Hermit  in  the  New 
Forest.  Madge  and  Evelyn,  however,  less  lucky  in  the  mat- 
ter of  locality,  had  to  remain  all  the  month  in  London,  with- 
out any  immediate  prospect  of  getting  away.  That  week  at 
Le  Touquet,  with  its  motor-car,  its  suite  of  rooms,  and  Eve- 
lyn's serene  and  complete  disregard  of  all  questions  con- 
nected however  remotely  with  finance,  had  been  somewhat 
alarmingly  expensive,  and  his  ill-judged  selling  out  of  his 
Metiekull  shares  when  things  were  absolutely  at  their  worst 
had  not  mended  matters.  He  had  taken  Madge  completely 
into  his  confidence,  and  as  it  was  evidently  likely  that  there 
would  soon  be  an  embarrassing  lack  of  funds,  she  had  in- 
sisted on  their  immediate  return  to  London,  where  they 
would  be  anyhow  rent  free  in  Evelyn's  house  in  the  King's 
Road,  and  could,  as  he  cheerfully  suggested,  live  on  lentils 
like  the  Hermit.  But  on  arrival  in  London  the  hall  table 
was  discovered  to  be  literally  smothered  in  bills,  chiefly  "to 
account  rendered,"  for  Evelyn  in  the*insouciance  of  the  com- 
fortable bachelor  income  which  his  pictures  brought  him  in, 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

had  certainly  for  a  year  past  thrown  into  the  fire  anything 
of  a  bill-nature.  Nothing  had  ever  been  further  from  his 
thoughts  than  not  to  pay,  but  the  knowledge  that  he  could, 
by  a  strange  but  almost  universal  trait  in  human  nature,  had 
made  him  not  bother  to  do  so.  But,  now,  however,  by  the 
converse  of  this  law,  which  holds  equally  true,  as  soon  as 
it  was  doubtful  whether  he  could  stand  debt  free,  it  became 
quite  essential  to  his  interior  peace  of  mind  that  he  should 
do  so.  This  instinct  appealed  also  to  Madge,  and  after  a 
dismal  morning  of  adding  up,  the  whole  position  was  re- 
vealed. Every  penny  could  be  paid  with  the  jetsam  of 
Metiekull,  and  there  was  left  over — his  total  assets  except 
his  hand  and  his  eye — the  sum  of  forty-three  pounds.  It  was 
clearly  necessary,  therefore,  to  stop  in  London,  to  be  ex- 
tremely economical,  and  to  hope  that  the  autumn  would 
bring  sitters.  Lady  Tavener,  at  any  rate,  was  assured,  and 
Evelyn  found  himself  thinking  of  that  pink  face  and  butter- 
coloured  hair  with  almost  affection. 

The  month  was  extremely  hot,  but  of  the  stifling  air,  of 
the  emptiness  of  town,  of  the  economy  that  Madge  insisted 
on  being  observed,  what  a  game  their  love  made !  They  were 
stranded  on  a  desert  island,  so  ran  the  silly  tale  that  was 
made  up  from  day  to  day,  in  the  midst  of  the  tropics.  A 
huge  town  was  (unexplainedly)  there,  in  which  they  dwelt; 
but  though  cabs  jingled  about  it,  it  was  forbidden,  as  in  an 
allegory,  to  get  into  a  cab.  A  mile  away  there  were  restau- 
rants, which  both  in  a  dreamlike  fashion  seemed  to  know ; 
in  these,  too,  it  was  forbidden  to  set  foot,  for  a  lion  called 
Ellesdee  guarded  the  doors.  Ellesdee,  who  gradually  grew 
more  elaborate,  also  crouched  on  the  tops  of  the  cabs  they 
would  otherwise  have  driven  in,  and  lay  in  wait  at  the  main 
terminuses  which  would  have  taken  them  out  of  town.  El- 
lesdee could  assume  various  forms;  sometimes  he  became 
quite  little,  and  crouched  behind  a  box  of  hot-house  peaches, 
which  would  have  been  pleasant  for  dinner;  at  other  times 
he  was  an  apparently  bland  attendant  at  the  door  of  theatres. 
He  even,  this  was  Madge's  contribution,  nearly  prevented 
Evelyn  buying  a  couple  of  very  expensive  brushes  which  he 
wanted,  but  impassioned  argument  on  his  part  convinced  her 
that  it  was  not  Ellesdee  at  all  who  had  taken  the  form  of  the 
shopman,  and  consequently  the  brushes  were  bought.  He 
certainly  guarded  the  furniture  shops,  where  Evelyn  was 


264  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

inclined  to  linger,  and  though  he  had  an  eye  on  what  came 
in  at  the  area  gate,  into  the  house  itself  he  never  penetrated. 
Nor  was  he  to  be  found  in  Battersea  Park,  nor  on  the  Em- 
bankment, where  they  used  to  walk  in  the  cool  of  the  evening. 

But  the  Ellesdee  who  had  been  responsible  for  the  disaster 
in  Metiekull  never  showed  his  face.  That  had  been  a  big 
and  a  dead  loss,  but  Evelyn  had  shaken  it  off  from  his  mind, 
just  as  some  retriever  puppy  shakes  off  the  water  after  a 
swim,  dispersing  it  over  yards  of  grass  in  a  halo.  And  if 
Madge  on  the  day  when  they  sat  on  the  sands  at  Paris-plage 
had  had  disquieting  thoughts  as  to  whether  it  was  a  man 
she  had  married  or  a  mere  boy,  here  at  any  rate  was  some 
consolation  if  it  proved  to  be  the  latter.  For  Evelyn  had 
certainly  that  divinest  gift  of  youth  in  being  able  to  utterly 
expunge  from  the  present  and  from  his  view  of  the  future 
all  that  had  been  unpleasant  in  the  past.  The  moment  a 
thing  was  done,  if  the  result  was  not  satisfactory,  it  ceased 
to  be ;  if  consequences  called,  as  now  they  called,  in  the  shape 
of  rigid  economies,  he  was  simply  not  at  home  to  them.  The 
results  he  accepted  with  cheerful  blandness,  but  he  never 
went  back  to  the  cause.  Whether  it  might  or  might  not  have 
been  avoided  no  longer  mattered,  since  it  had  not  been 
avoided.  The  cause,  however,  was  done  with;  it  belonged 
to  the  mistlike  texture  of  the  past.  Meantime  his  exuberant 
spirits  made  the  very  most  of  the  present. 

One  afternoon  some  business  had  taken  him  towards  the 
city,  and  he  returned  hot,  dusty,  but  irresistibly  buoyant 
shortly  before  dinner.  Madge  was  sitting  in  the  studio, 
where,  with  its  north  aspect,  coolness  was  never  wholly  ab- 
sent, and  though  her  heart  went  out  to  meet  even  his  step 
on  the  stairs,  she  looked  suspiciously  at  a  small  parcel  under 
his  arm  as  he  entered. 

"  Yes,  champagne,"  he  said.  "  One  bottle,  half  for  you 
and  half  for  me.  Oh,  let  me  explain.  I  got  a  dividend  this 
morning  of  eight  shillings  and  sixpence  from  twenty-five 
shares  in  something  which  I  had  forgotten,  and  which  had 
therefore  ceased  to  exist.  Oh,  Madge,  don't  scream !  What 
use  is  eight  shillings  ?  But  we  both  want  champagne,  so  its 
equivalent  in  champagne  is  of  use.  No,  it's  no  use  trying 
to  make  me  feel  sorry,  because  I'm  not.  I  just  had  to.  Oh, 
you  darling !" 

He  sat  down  on  the  sofa  by  her. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  265 

"  I'm  hot,  I  know,"  he  said,  "  but  you  might  kiss  just  the 
end  of  my  nose.  I  haven't  seen  you  for  five  hours." 

She  kissed  him. 

"  But  you  are  simply  abominable,"  she  said. 

"  Yes,  that  probably  is  so.  Another  thing  happened  to- 
day, too.  I  saw  Philip.  He  was  driving  to  Waterloo.  In 
a  hansom.  Luggage  was  behind  with  his  servant  in  a  cab. 
He  didn't  see  me ;  at  least  if  he  did,  he  appeared  not  to." 

Evelyn  paused  a  moment. 

"  Poor  devil !"  he  said.  "  I  don't  know  how  you  feel,  but 
I  am  awfully  sorry  for  him.  But  how  could  I  help  it  ?  Are 
you  a  fatalist,  Madge?" 

"If  lam,  what  then?" 

"  Nothing ;  but  you've  got  to  listen  to  a  little  sermon, 
whether  you  are  or  not.  It's  dreadful  about  Philip ;  you  see, 
he  was  my  friend.  But  what  else  was  to  be  done  ?  Wasn't 
the  whole  thing  inevitable?  How  could  it  have  been  other- 
wise but  that  you  and  I  should  be  here  ? 

"  Otherwise  ?"  she  said,  "  what  otherwise  was  there  ?  Yet 
— yet,  oh,  Evelyn,  on  what  little  accidents  it  all  depended. 
The  thunderstorm  down  in  the  New  Forest,  your  atro- 
cious  " 

"What?" 

"  Your  atrocious  behaviour.  And  then  that  it  was  he  who 
asked  me  to  give  you  one  more  sitting,  and  that  my  mother 
should  have  opened  my  letter !  Is  life  all  accidents  ?  Are 
you  and  I  the  prey  of  any  future  accidents?  May  we  be 
marred  and  maimed  by  what  is  as  fortuitous  as  all  this?" 

Evelyn  shifted  slightly  in  his  seat.  This  summing  up  of 
the  past  was  a  thing  he  was  not  inclined  to.  It  was  summed 
up  and  finished  with,  except  in  so  far  as  the  present  was  the 
finished  past.  Why  go  over  the  accounts  again  ?  There  was 
no  doubt  as  to  their  correctness. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  it  was  all  accidents,"  he  said,  "  but 
if  you  begin  to  call  things  accidents,  there  is  no  stopping.  If 
one  thing  is  an  accident,  everything  is.  That  I  stayed  at  his 
house  at  Pangbourne  when  you  were  there  you  may  call  an 
accident.  That  we  made  friends  there  you  will  call  an  acci- 
dent also,  if  you  call  the  first  an  accident.  And  if  you  are 
consistent  you  will  call  the  fact  that  we  loved  each  other  an 
accident.  Only,  if  you  call  that  an  accident,  you  are  using 
the  word  in  a  different  sense  to  that  which  I  use  it  in." 


266  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  Then  nothing  is  an  accident?"  she  asked. 
"  Yes,  my  buying  this  bottle  of  champagne  was  an  acci- 
dent, because  I  didn't  mean  to.    But  as  it  has  happened,  we 
may  as  well  drink  it." 

But  a  sudden  stab  of  disappointment  somehow  pierced 
Madge.  She  had  been  serious,  and  so  to  a  certain  point  had 
he.  But  now,  when  their  talk  seemed  to  be  becoming  fruit- 
bearing,  he  could  dismiss  it  all  with  a  jest.  Her  wifehood, 
for  a  month  or  two  ago  she  would  have  done  likewise,  had 
developed  her  in  a  way  that  marriage  had  not  developed 
him.  He  was  still  the  bright-eyed  boy.  She,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  no  longer  a  girl  but  a  woman.  All  the  sub-con- 
sciousness of  this  twanged  in  her  answer. 

"  You  are  so  undeveloped,"  she  said  suddenly. 
But  to  his  ears  there  was  no  reproach  in  this ;  it  concerned 
the  future,  not  the  past.     And  his  "bright  eyes  but  grew 
brighter. 

"  Surely,"  he  said,  "  but  the  development  is  in  your  hands. 
And  I  lay  it — whatever  it  is — at  your  feet." 

That,  too,  Madge  felt  was  so  extraordinarily  genuine; 
small  as  was  the  tribute,  it  could  not  be  but  graceful.  Every- 
where he  was  that,  in  no  relation  of  life  was  he  otherwise — 
the  beautiful,  undeveloped  manhood  put  out  buds  every- 
where, yet  at  present  no  bud  was  expanded  into  a  flower. 
There  was  brilliant  promise,  no  promise  could  be  fairer  or 
more  sincere,  for  he  was  incapable  of  insincerity,  yet  it  was 
the  "  imperishable  child  "  with  whose  fate  she  had  bound 
herself  up.  Everything  was  there,  except  one,  and  that  was 
the  man.  His  talent  was  brilliant,  and  she  could  not  have 
parted  with  the  constant  companionship  any  more  than  she 
could  have  parted  with  the  light  of  day,  yet  something  was 
missing. 

It  was  not  less  definite,  this  sense  or  quality  which  was 
missing  in  Evelyn,  because  it  was  indefinable ;  one  could  not 
know  another  person,  whether  man  or  woman,  without- 
knowing  whether  it  was  there  or  not,  and  indeed  almost 
everybody  was  possessed  of  it.  Philip  had  it  to  a  notable 
degree — indeed  it  was  that  which,  if  she  searched  her  heart, 
had  in  its  extraordinary  abundance  in  him  made  her  origi- 
nally accept  the  possibility  of  her  becoming  his  wife.  It  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  ardour  of  love,  since  the  man  for 
whom  she  alone  had  experienced  that  had  nothing  of  it.  Nor 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  267 

was  it  brilliant  in  any  way,  since  all  that  was  his  also.  Only 
it  was  bed-rock ;  it  was  something  quite  secure  and  respon- 
sible, and  willing  to  take  all  responsibility,  and  human.  It 
co-existed  with  dulness,  it  existed  in  people  who  were  frank- 
ly intolerable.  It  was  probably  bourgeois,  but  she  felt  the 
possibility,  as  yet  far  off,  so  far  off  that  she  would  only  strain 
her  eyes  if  she  tried  to  focus  them  on  it,  of  its  being  neces- 
sary, just  as  food  and  drink  were  necessary.  The  little  ghost 
at  Le  Touquet,  in  fact,  had  apparently  begged  its  way  across, 
and  had  established  itself  in  the  King's  Road.  But  ghosts 
of  this  kind  do  not  mind  prosaic  surroundings ;  the  discern- 
ing reader  will  perceive  they  have  no  need  of  tapestry  or 
panels,  for  they  are  concerned  in  no  way  with  what  is  past 
and  ancestral,  but  with  what  is  alive  and  knitted  into  the 
fabric  of  the  present. 

But  after  thus  dismissing  the  question  of  the  accidents  and 
essentials  of  life  with  this  ill-timed  little  jest  about  the 
champagne,  Evelyn  quite  suddenly  returned  to  a  matter  as 
serious. 

"  You  called  me  undeveloped  just  now,"  he  said,  "  and  I 
expect  you  are  right  in  a  way  that  you  did  not  think.  Tom 
Merivale  told  me  once  that  I  had  not  the  rudiments  of  a 
conscience,  and  I  have  often  thought  of  that,  and  believe  it 
is  quite  true.  That  is"  where  I  am  really  undeveloped,  and  I 
expect  it  is  that " — and  his  face  lit  up  even  more  with  this 
piece  of  intuition — "  I  expect  it  is  that  which  you  miss  in  me. 
He  also  said  I  had  no  depth.  You  miss  that  too,  probably." 

Evelyn  announced  these  discoveries  with  a  perfectly  serene 
and  unclouded  air;  perturbation  that  he  was  lacking  in  so 
large  a  piece  of  moral  equipment  as  a  conscience  would  do 
no  manner  of  good ;  nor,  because  his  wife  missed  it,  would 
it  help  matters  that  he  should  mourn  with  her  over  his  de- 
ficiency. But  the  unshadowed  brightness  of  his  face,  his 
frank  acceptance  of  this  so  genially  and  generously  made, 
was  something  of  a  reproach  to  her.  All  the  sunshine  of  his 
beautiful  nature  was  hers,  all  the  brilliance  of  his  talent,  his 
extraordinary  personal  charm,  his  blithe  acquiescence  in  all 
that  happened  was  hers,  and  yet  she  was  discontent.  And 
with  a  pang  of  self-reproach  she  contrasted  all  he  gave  her 
with  what  she  had  herself  thought  good  enough  to  give  to 
Philip  when  she  promised  to  be  his  wife,  affection,  respect, 


268  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

esteem,  just  a  platter  of  frigid  odds  and  ends,  compared  to 
this  great  feast  and  glorious  banquet  of  love. 

But  there  was  no  doubt  as  to  the  accuracy  of  the  diagnosis 
which  Evelyn  had  made  as  to  what  she  missed  in  him.  He 
had  risen  from  the  sofa,  and  was  standing  in  front  of  her, 
and  at  this  she  rose  too,  and  laid  her  hands  on  his  shoulder. 

"  Ah,  I'm  an  ungrateful  little  brute,"  she  said ;  "  but  I  be- 
lieve that  is  a  woman's  way.  Whatever  you  give  a  woman, 
she  always  wants  more,  and  you — you,  dear,  whatever  I  give 
you.  you  always  say  you  did  not  know  so  much  was  possible. 
So  I  confess,  and  am  sorry." 

He  looked  at  her  still  smiling,  but  without  speaking,  and 
the  warmth  of  her  contrition  cooled  a  little.  He  ought  to 
have  known,  so  she  told  herself,  that  what  she  had  said  was 
not  very  easy  to  say;  he  ought  to  have  met  the  warmth  of 
her  amende  with  welcome  and  acceptation,  and  even  ac- 
knowledgment of  her  generosity,  for  she  had  been  generous. 

"  Well,"  she  said  at  length,  "  have  you  nothing  to  say  to 
that?" 

He  put  his  head  a  little  on  one  side,  as  he  did  so  often  when 
he  was  painting. 

"  Yes,  I  was  just  arranging  it  in  my  head  in  beautiful 
language,"  he  said,  "  but  the  beautiful  language  won't  come, 
so  you  will  have  to  hear  it  plain,  not  coloured.  It's  just  this. 
I  don't  think  one  does  any  good  by  pulling  oneself  open  to 
see  what's  inside — oh,  yes,  rosebud,  that's  part  of  the  beauti- 
ful language — like  a  rosebud.  One  flowers  best,  I  expect,  by 
leaving  oneself  alone,  by  just  living.  Surely  life  is  good 
enough !  I  suppose  some  people  are  naturally  analytical, 
people  who  write  books,  for  instance,  about  other  people's 
moral  insides.  But  I'm  quite  certain  that  I'm  not  like  that. 
I  paint  pictures,  you  see,  of  other  people's  outsides.  And  if 
I  went  on  painting  your  face  for  years,  Madge,  I  should 
never  get  to  the  end  of  all  it  is,  or  all  it  is  to  me.  Well,  that's 
Evelyn  Dundas :  I  beg  to  introduce  him.  And  you  are  Eve- 
lyn Dundas,  let  me  tell  you.  You  are  me ;  you  can't  get  away 
from  that.  So  don't  make  either  the  best  or  the  worst  of  me ; 
don't  let  us  regard  our  relations  like  that.  They  are  what 
they  are,  and  want  no  interpretation  or  examination.  Let 
them  just  burn,  and  not  examine  their  light  under  a  spectro- 
scope. Dear  me,  there's  more  beautiful  language.  I  apolo- 
gise." 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  269 

She  could  not  help  laughing  at  this  conclusion ;  his  earn- 
estness, for  he  was  absolutely  earnest,  was  all  of  one  piece 
with  utter  flippancy,  and  from  one  he  passed  to  the  other 
without  break  or  transition.  How  that  could  be  she  did  not 
know,  only  it  was  all  he.  And  as  far  as  any  one  person  can 
convince  any  other,  she  was  convinced.  Indeed,  it  was  tear- 
ing flowers  open  to  behave  and  to  think  as  she  had  been 
doing,  and  she  answered  him  in  his  own  manner. 

"  Take  care  of  the  habit  of  beautiful  language,  dear,"  she 
said.  "  It  grows  on  you  without  your  knowing  it.  And 
surely  it's  dinner  time." 

Evelyn  cast  a  tragic  glance  round. 

"  Ah,  there  it  is,"  he  cried.  "  I  really  had  completely  for- 
gotten— you  needn't  believe  it  unless  you  like — about  the 
dividend  we  are  going  to  drink.  I  suppose  a  little  ice  now 
wouldn't  be  possible  ?  I  would  go  and  get  it." 

"  Yes,  but  I  don't  officially  know  about  it,"  said  she. 


Storms  in  the  physical  and  material  sense  are  variously 
supposed  to  have  two  diametrically  opposite  effects ;  they 
may  be  regarded  as  likely  to  clear  the  air,  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  cause  a  general  unsettlement  in  the  weather.  And 
mental  or  spiritual  storms  can  in  the  same  way  either  be  the 
precursors  and  causes  of  serene  blue  weather,  or  they  can 
produce  a  disturbance  of  equilibria  which  is  not  easily  or 
immediately  adjusted  again ;  the  violent  agitation  sets  every- 
thing shaking  and  jarring.  And  the  worst  of  it  is  that  there 
is  no  barometer  known  which  will  reliably  predict  which  of 
these  effects  is  likely  to  be  produced.  To  speak  of  a  thing, 
"  to  have  it  out"  as  the  phrase  goes,  may  get  rid  of  it  alto- 
gether; it  may  be  pricked  like  a  puff-ball  and  vanish  in  a 
little  dust  and  smoke,  leaving  an  empty  bladder,  and  again 
"  to  have  it  out"  may  but  emphasise  and  make  its  existence 
more  real.  The  "  having  it  out,"  in  fact,  is  but  a  sort  of  pre- 
liminary examination,  which  proves  whether  there  is  some- 
thing there  or  whether  there  is  nothing. 

This  talk  between  Evelyn  and  his  wife  had  its  distinct 
analogy  to  a  storm.  Things  had  been  gathering  up — indeed 
they  were  clouds — in  Madge's  mind  ever  since  Le  Touquet, 
and  though  their  bursting  had  been  unaccompanied  by  rain 
or  explosions,  yet  to-night  they  had  been  undeniably  dis- 


270  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

charged,  and  it  remained  only  to  see  whether  the  air  should 
prove  to  have  been  cleared,  or  whether  the  disturbance  had 
upset  the  moral  atmosphere.  Again,  they  had  "  had  it  out," 
she  had  indicated  where  her  trouble  lay,  or  rather  he  had 
laid  an  unerring  finger  on  it,  and  as  physician  had  said 
"  Leave  it  alone ;  that  is  my  suggestion.  Don't  let  us  hear 
any  more  about  it."  She  fully  intended  to  follow  his  advice, 
but  half -consciously  she  made  a  reservation,  for  she  knew 
that  some  time — next  week,  next  month,  next  year — she 
must  know  that  either  he  had  been  right,  and  that  the  troubh: 
had  vanished,  or  that  he  had  been  wrong  and  the  trouble  had 
grown  worse.  And  so  some  secret  sense  of  uncertainty  and 
unsatisfiedness  sat  somewhere  deep  in  the  shadows  of  her 
heart.  It  did  not  often  obtrude  its  presence,  but  she  knew 
it  was  there. 

On  Evelyn,  however,  this  same  scene  appeared  to  leave  no 
trace  of  any  kind — and,  indeed,  there  was  no  reason  why  it 
should,  because  it  had  contained  nothing  that  was  new  to 
him,  and  also  because  it  had  ended  so  thoroughly  satisfac- 
torily. Madge  had  agreed  with  him  about  the  advisability  of 
letting  analysis  alone  for  the  future.  He  had,  indeed,  this 
evening  indulged  in  a  little,  and  he  found  that  there  was 
nothing  in  their  mutual  relations  which  he  wanted  altering, 
nothing  which  alteration  would  not  have  spoiled.  Not  for  a 
moment  did  he  say  that  there  were  not  things  in  himself 
which  he  should  have  preferred  vastly  different,  but  with  a 
certain  good  sense  he  considered  that  in  shaping  one's  course 
in  life  one  had  to  accept  certain  tendencies  and  limitations  in 
oneself,  and,  having  granted  them,  to  do  one's  best.  And  he 
did  not  see  that  any  perseverance  or  thought  or  pains  on  his 
part  could  create  in  him  what  Merivale  had  called  a  con- 
science. His  life  was  honest,  sober,  and  clean,  not,  it  must 
be  confessed,  because  morality  indicated  that  it  should  be, 
but  because  his  artistic  sense  would  be  hurt  by  its  being  other 
than  that.  It  was  sheer  waste  of  time  for  him  to  sit  down 
and  think  about  duty,  because  it  really  meant  nothing  to 
him ;  he  might  as  well  have  sat  down  and  thought  about 
Hebrew.  But  from  the  kindliness  and  warmth  of  his  nature 
his  conclusions  as  regards  conduct  were  extraordinarily  like 
those  which  the  very  finest  sense  of  duty  would  have  dic- 
tated. Yet  now  and  then,  as  when  he  had  said  that  he  was 
sorry  for  Philip,  but  that  nothing  could  have  happened  dif- 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  271 

ferently,  though  Madge  in  word  agreed  with  him,  yet  she, 
with  her  fine  feminine  sense,  knew  that  she  agreed  with  him, 
but  agreed  somehow  on  a  plane  quite  different  from  his. 
That  nothing  could  have  happened  differently  she  knew  in 
another  way  than  his:  deeply,  fiercely,  and  whole-heartedly 
as  he  loved  her.  For  all  her  life  up  till  now,  her  whole  nature 
had  lain  dormant;  it  had  awoke  all  at  once,  and  awoke 
to  find  that  one  person  only  was  there,  even  as  Brunnhilde 
woke  on  the  mountain  top  and  saw  Siegfried.  That  awak- 
ening had  been  long  delayed,  but  when  it  came  it  was  com- 
plete, like  that  thunder-clap  when  he  had  declared  his  love 
for  her,  it  deafened  and  paralysed  all  other  senses ;  there  was 
only  one  thing  in  the  world  for  her,  and  that  was  her  love. 

But  to  him — she  could  not  help  knowing  this — his  love  for 
her  had  not  been  the  blinding  flash  that  awoke  all  his  nature. 
He  had  loved  before  that,  keen  sensibilities  had  been  his,  the 
sensibilities  that  inspired  his  art  and  made  it  so  extraordi- 
narily vital.  All  his  life  a  huge  joy  of  life  had  inspired  him  ; 
he  had  waved  in  the  winds  of  human  emotions,  he  brought 
to  her  a  love  which  was  new  indeed,  but  one  which  was 
driven  by  an  engine  that  drove  other  machines  as  well,  his 
art,  his  joy  of  life,  for  instance.  But  all  that  she  was,  was 
this  one  thing ;  she  had  lain  like  a  chrysalis  hitherto,  and  the 
moth  beautiful  that  came  out  with  wings  at  first  crumpled 
and  quivering,  but  momentarily  expanding  in  the  sun,  had 
till  then  lived  in  darkness,  and  the  light  it  saw  when  it 
emerged  from  its  cracked  husk  was  the  only  light  it  had  ever 
known.  She  did  not  compare  the  respective  dimensions,  so 
to  speak,  of  the  love  of  each  of  them  for  a  moment — she  be- 
lieved that  Evelyn  loved  her  as  completely  as  she  loved  him. 
But  he  loved  other  things  as  well ;  his  art  was  a  vital  part  of 
his  life,  while  she  had  nothing  but  him.  This  was  whv. 
though  he  was  so  much  more  developed  than  she,  she  had 
spoken  a  sort  of  truth  when  she  said  he  was  undeveloped, 
for  he  did  not  love  her  to  the  exclusion  of  all  else.  She  was 
not,  and  could  not  be,  the  only  thing  the  world  held  for  him. 

In  the  same  way  also  his  sorrow  for  Philip's  suffering 
was  different  from  hers,  for  he,  so  it  seemed  to  her,  was 
sorry  for  Philip,  as  his  nature  would  make  it  necessary  for 
him  to  be  sorry  for  anyone  who  had  suffered  great  loss,  for 
an  artist  who  went  blind,  for  a  musician  who  went  deaf,  but 
had  yet  the  other  joys  of  life,  with,  in  course  of  time,  an  in- 


272  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

crease  in  his  other  sensibilities  as  compensation  to  make  his 
loss  good.  But  she  who  had  emerged  from  nothingness  into 
the  full  blaze  of  this  unconjectured  noonday  rated  Philip's 
loss  at  what  her  own  would  have  been.  All  had  been  taken 
from  him,  he  was  left  in  the  original  outer  darkness  which 
can  only  be  estimated  by  those  who  have  seen  light,  and  not 
by  the  purblind  creatures  that  have  never  left  it.  Philip, 
what  must  Philip's  sufferings  have  been !  Poor  Philip,  who 
was  so  kind,  so  likeable,  so  everything  but  loved  by  her.  And 
it  was  she  who  had  done  this ;  she  had  brought  a  misery  on 
him  which  she  honestly  gauged  by  the  knowledge  of  what 
her  misery  would  be  if  something  happened  which  made 
Evelyn  no  longer  love  her. 

She  had  carried  the  skeleton  of  these  thoughts  with  her 
to  bed  that  night,  and  she  woke  early  to  find  that,  as  in  the 
dry  bones  of  Ezekiel's  vision,  they  were  beginning  to  knit 
themselves  together,  bone  coming  to  his  bone,  and  the  flesh 
covering  them.  The  pale  dawn  was  beginning  to  peer  into 
the  windows,  and  the  birds  to  tune  up  in  broken  chirrupings 
for  the  songs  of  the  day.  Had  Philip  woke  like  this,  she 
wondered,  during  this  hot  August  month  that  he,  too,  had 
spent  in  London?  If  so,  what  mitigation  of  his  misery  had 
he  found?  Not  in  his  business,  she  could  not  believe  that; 
surely  he  must  have  taken  to  work  as  another  man,  unhappy 
but  less  manly,  takes  to  a  drug  that  deadens  the  power  of 
sense.  Surely  that  must  be  the  explanation  of  his  tireless 
industry  in  the  city  all  this  month,  when  others  now  went 
for  holiday  to  moor  and  mountain.  Oh,  poor  Philip !  She 
had  brought  all  this  on  him,  too ;  she  could  have  made  him 
happy,  she  felt  sure  of  that,  had  not  soft,  irresistible  love 
made  that  gracious  task  impossible  for  her. 

The  room  in  spite  of  its  open  window  was  very  hot,  and 
she  turned  back  the  blanket  quietly  so  as  not  to  disturb 
Evelyn.  He  lay  with  his  face  turned  towards  her,  in  deep 
sleep,  not  dreamless,  perhaps,  because  he  smiled.  Even  in 
this  wan  morning  light,  when  all  vitality  burns  low,  his  face 
was  radiant ;  no  scruple,  no  pale  doubt  troubled  his  rest.  He 
would  wake  to  another  day  with  the  same  welcome  of  "  Good 
morning "  for  it  as  that  with  which  he  had  said  "  Good 
night "  to  the  last.  His  lips  were  closed,  he  breathed  evenly 
and  slowly  through  his  nostrils,  no  sleep  could  have  been 
more  tranquil.  It  was  just  the  sleep  of  a  child  tired  with 


THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN  273 

play,  who  would  be  recuperated  on  the  morrow  for  another 
day  of  play. 

Then  she  rose  very  quietly,  and,  opening  the  door  with 
precaution,  went  into  the  bath-room.  She  was  afraid  that 
the  splash  of  the  water  might  rouse  him,  and  put  her 
sponge  underneath  the  tap  so  that  the  sound  was  muffled, 
for  she  had  the  same  womanly  tenderness  with  regard  to 
breaking  his  sleep  as  she  had  towards  Philip.  All  suffering 
was  sacred ;  even  a  broken  hour  of  rest  was  a  thing  to  be 
avoided.  Then  with  infinite  care  she  tip-toed  back  into 
their  bedroom  and  dressed,  but  before  she  left  it  she  looked 
at  him  once  more.  No,  she  had  not  aroused  him,  and  no 
play  of  sub-conscious  cerebration  told  him  that  she  had 
gone ;  he  slept  on  with  the  same  tranquil  sleep. 


EIGHTEENTH 


HADY  DOVER'S  letter  to  Madge  was  most  elastic 
as  regarded  the  date  of  their  visit  and  thoroughly 
cordial,  for  she  never  did  things  by  halves,  and  the 
welcome  that  would  be  given  to  her  and  Evelyn 
if  he  could  possibly  spare  time  to  visit  so  remote  a  place 
was  sincerity  itself.  About  accepting  it,  she  had  her  own 
view  quite  clearly  formed,  but  her  own  pride,  her  pride,  too, 
in  her  husband,  prevented  her  from  giving  the  slightest 
inkling  of  it  to  him.  For  she  saw  clearly  that  this  visit  was 
proposed  by  Lady  Dover  with  the  definite  purpose  of  show- 
ing an  act  of  friendliness  after  her  marriage ;  it  was  clearly 
made  with  intention,  and  in  her  heart  of  hearts  Madge  was 
intensely  grateful.  To  hint  this,  however,  to  Evelyn  was 
impossible.  But  his  frank  eagerness  to  go  made  it  unneces- 
sary for  her  to  consider  any  more  the  diplomatic  reason  for 
doing  so. 

"  Oh,  let's  go,"  he  said.  "  Surely  Scotland  is  better  than 
London.  What  is  there  here?  Just  a  stuffy  town,  and 
Battersea  Park,  and  nothing  whatever  to  do." 

Madge  knew  that  her  own  feeling  of  being  hurt  at  this 
was  unreasonable.  This  solitude  of  London  had  been  un- 
utterably dear  to  her,  but  she  knew  her  own  feeling  to  be 
unreasonable,  since  she  never  doubted — and  rightly — how 
dear  it  had  been  to  him.  And  why  should  he  not  want  to 
be  externally  amused — to  shoot,  to  fish,  to  do  all  those  things 
that  he  delighted  in?  And  echo  answered  "  Why?" 

It  was  at  breakfast  time  that  this  letter  arrived,  and  the 
bacon  was  undeniably  less  good  than  it  would  have  been 
two  days  previously.  Evelyn  sniffed  at  it,  and  decided 
against  it.  But  his  sensitiveness  to  slightly  passee  bacon  was 
sensitive  to  her  feelings  also. 

"  One  doesn't  want  meat  food  in  the  summer,"  he  said. 
*'  Tea  and  marmalade — how  delicious  I" 

Madge  handed  him  his  tea. 
274 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  275 

"  You  dear,"  she  said.  "  It  is  high,  and  it's  my  fault ;  I 
thought  it  would  be  good  just  for  to-day.  But  it  isn't.  Oh, 
Evelyn,  it  was  nice  of  you  to  pretend  you  didn't  want  any. 
But  you  can't  act  before  me.  I  always  know  you.  So  give 
it  up." 

Evelyn  gave  a  great  shout  of  laughter. 

"  Madge  and  marmalade,"  he  said.  "  That's  good  enough 
for  me.  In  fact,  I  would  leave  out  the  marmalade  if  re- 
quired. Oh,  Madge,  why  can't  you  be  serious  and  talk 
about  this.  By  the  way,  I'll  paint  another  sketch  of  you 
called  '  Bad  bacon ' ;  the  yearning  face  of  the  young  wife. 
You  are  young,  you  know,  and  you  are  my  wife.  Don't 
chatter  so,  it  confuses  me.  Now  Lady  Dover,  if  you  will  be 
silent  one  moment,  lives  at  Golspie." 

"  That's  where  you  are  wrong,"  said  Madge.  "  You  have 
to  go  to  Golspie  before  you  begin." 

"  I  don't  want  to  begin.  I  want  to  get  there.  Don't 
you?" 

Madge  put  on  the  woeful  face  that  always  introduced 
Ellesdee. 

"  I  don't  like  the  ticket  man  at  King's  Cross,"  she  said. 
"  I  don't  think  he  is  what  he  seems." 

Evelyn  had  eaten  by  this  time  all  the  crust  off  a  Hovis 
loaf. 

"  More  crust,"  he  said.  "  There  isn't  any.  Very  good ; 
marmalade  in  a  spoon.  But  I  won't  distend  my — my  vie 
interieure  with  crumb.  About  the  ticket  man.  You  are 
wrong  if  we  are  generous  to  Lady  Dover  with  regard  to  the 
length  of  our  visit.  Why  mince  matters  ?  Can  we  afford  it  ? 
I  say  '  Yes.'  Board  wages  for  our  enormous  establishment 
here.  Tickets  for  ourselves,  third  class — I  wish  there  was 
a  fourth  or  fifth — and  what's  the  dem'd  total,  as  Mr.  Man- 
talini  said.  Besides  these  " — Evelyn  waved  his  hand  like  a 
man  commanding  millions — "  these  are  temporary  econo- 
mies. The  pink  and  butter-coloured  is  going  to  visit  these 
classic  abodes  in  October,  and  if  orders  don't  pour  in  like 
our  own  leaky  roof,  I'll  eat  all  the  gamboge  in  my  paint- 
box. I  can't  say  fairer.  And  as  I  don't  possess  gamboge," 
he  added,  "  the  bet  finds  no  takers.  I  give  you  that  informa- 
tion, for  though  I  am  poor,  I  am  honest." 

Evelyn  proceeded  to  eat  marmalade  with  a  spoon. 

"  It  will  be  very  chic,  if  you  come  to  think  of  it,"  he  said. 


276  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

"  Probably  several  ladies'  maids  and  valets  will  arrive  with 
their  respective  owners  by  the  same  train.  You,  Madge, 
will  flirt  with  one  or  two  of  the  valets,  and  I  with  several 
of  the  ladies'  maids.  The  scene  then  is  shifted  to  Golspie 
station.  You  squeeze  the  hands  of  the  valets  on  the  plat- 
form, and  I  gaze  into  the  eyes  of  the  ladies'  maids.  The 
sumptuous  motor  has  come  for  Lady  Dover's  guests.  We 
strive  to  subdue — quite  ineffectually — our  air  of  conscious 
superiority,  and  squeeze  the  hands  of  Dukes  and  Duchesses. 
Then  they  will  know  us  in  our  true  colours.  Triumphal 
explosion  of  the  motor-car.  The  valets  and  ladies'  maids 
are  saved.  Hurrah  for  the  lower  classes !  Another  cup  of 
tea,  please.  Right  up  to  the  top.  And  the  point  is  the  fare 
to  Golspie.  Arrived  there,  we  shall  have  no  more  food  and 
drink  to  buy." 

The  reasoning  was  inevitable;  given  that  domestic  econ- 
omy could  manage  it,  there  was  no  reason  that  could  reason- 
ably indicate  King's  Road  instead.  Yet,  even  after  the 
A.B.C.  had  added  its  voice  to  the  overmastering  argument, 
Madge  hesitated.  She  could  not  quite  see  her  husband 
among  the  surroundings  that  awaited  her  there.  She  had 
been  there  before,  and  knew.  How  would  he  and  that  par- 
ticular milieu  suit  each  other?  All  this  was  secondary  to 
her  original  desire  to  go ;  her  private,  incommunicable  feel- 
ing that  such  a  visit  would  poser  them — for  she  could  not 
have  been  Lady  Ellington's  daughter  so  long  without  that 
point  of  view  having  soaked  into  her — was  paramount,  but 
the  other  was  there,  and  the  complication  in  her  mind  was 
that  though  she  wished,  taking  the  reasons  all  round,  to 
leave  this  hot  house  which  still  was  intertwined  with  ex- 
quisite and  undying  memories,  she  could  not  see  how  Evelyn 
should  wish  to  leave  this,  not  having  her  own  worldly  reasons 
for  going  to  Golspie,  without  a  pang.  But  since  the  question 
of  whether  economy  would  allow  had  been  decided  in  favour 
of  going,  there  was  certainly  no  more  to  be  said,  and,  so  she 
told  herself,  no  more  to  be  thought. 

But,  since  the  logical  conclusion  is  the  one  conclusion  in 
the  world  that  is  absolutely  without  effect  as  regards  results, 
she  continued  to  think.  For  the  ordinary  mind  is  not  in  the 
least  reasonable ;  it  would  cease  to  be  reasonable  the  moment 
it  was,  and  take  its  place  among  fixed  stars  and  other  unat- 
tainable objects.  Logic,  reason,  are  perhaps  the  most  inef- 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  277 

fective  of  human  motives ;  they  may  be  appealed  to  as  a  last 
resort ;  but  if  there  is  any  impulse  still  alive,  it,  and  not  logic, 
will  be  seized  on  as  a  ground  for  action.  Hence  the  divine 
uncertainty  of  human  affairs.  If  the  world  was  ruled  by 
reason  it  would  become  duller  than  a  week-old  newspaper. 
But  it  is  the  fact  that  every  human  soul  is  so  impredicable 
that  lends  the  zest  to  existence.  Finding  out,  in  fact,  not 
knowledge,  is  the  spring  that  makes  life  fascinating.  When- 
ever the  element  of  certainty  enters,  it  is  the  death's  head  at 
the  feast.  Nobody  cares  for  the  feast  any  more.  The  cham- 
pagne is  flat. 

So  to  Golspie  they  went,  and  Evelyn's  prophecy  as  regards 
the  journey  was  sufficiently  fulfilled  to  make  anybody  be- 
lieve that  there  must  have  been  something  in  it.  He,  at  any 
rate,  before  they  arrived  at  even  Inverness,  was  engaged  in 
conversation  with  an  agreeable  female  opposite,  a  conversa- 
tion which  was  not,  however,  so  engrossing  but  that  he  could 
observe  with  secret  glee  the  fact  that  Madge  was  reading  the 
Scotsman,  provided  for  her  by  an  equally  agreeable  young 
man,  who  sat  opposite,  and  hoped  that  his  cigarette  would 
not  be  disagreeable.  Then,  luck  was  really  on  his  side  that 
day,  important  people  stepped  out  of  first-class  carriages  at 
Golspie,  and,  by  the  usages  of  this  cruel  world,  these  ac- 
quaintances so  pleasantly  begun  were  rudely  interrupted. 
A  cart  waited  for  their  travelling  companions,  and  the  swift 
motor  received  them  and  the  strangers,  before  whom  their 
own  travelling  acquaintances  were  but  dust  and  ashes. 

It  was,  in  fact,  but  a  short  week  after  Lady  Ellington's 
arrival  at  Glen  Callan  that  her  daughter  and  son-in-law  got 
there,  and  though  she  would,  as  previously  arranged,  have 
gone  on  to  her  next  house  the  day  before  their  arrival,  she 
put  off  her  departure  for  two  days  in  order  to  have  the  pleas- 
ure of  seeing  them.  The  party,  in  fact,  was  unaltered,  and 
so  was  their  way  of  life;  Mr.  Osborne's  flow  of  humour 
showed  no  signs  of  running  dry,  nor  was  the  blank  amaze- 
ment with  which  Lord  Ellington  regarded  him  in  the  least 
abated.  Mr.  Dennison  was  getting  steadily  on  towards  the 
completion  of  his  panorama  of  Sutherland,  and  Lady  Dover 
found  fresh  lights  and  shadows  on  the  purple  heather  every 
day. 

Lady  Ellington  had  carefully  considered  what  her  exact 
attitude  towards  Madge  and  her  husband  should  be,  and  had 


278  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

come  to  the  most  sensible  conclusion  about  it.  Since  the 
world  had  made  up  its  mind  to  welcome  them,  and  to  draw 
a  wet  sponge  over  the  past,  it  was  clear  that  unless  she 
wished  to  make  an  exception  of  herself,  and  not  do  in  Rome 
what  Rome  did,  she  must  extend  to  them  not  merely  the  wel- 
come of  the  world,  but  the  welcome  of  a  mother  also.  And 
it  was  decidedly  the  best  plan  to  make  this  thorough ;  aston- 
ished as  Madge  might  be,  it  was  better  to  astonish  her  than 
the  world,  and  neither  in  public  nor  in  private  should  she 
hear  one  word  of  reproach  nor  an  uncordial  accent.  Lady 
Ellington  had  no  desire  to  see  private  talks  with  her  daugh- 
ter ;  in  fact,  she  meant  rather  to  avoid  them ;  but  her  whole 
policy  was  to  accept  what  had  happened,  and  welcome  Madge 
in  the  flesh  with  the  same  unreservedness  as  she  had  shown 
in  the  letter  she  had  written  her  a  week  ago,  urging  her 
to  accept  Lady  Dover's  invitation.  She  was  determined,  in 
fact  (now  that  Lady  Dover  had  shown  the  way),  to  make 
the  best  of  it,  and,  instead  of  bitterly  counting  up  (and 
mentally  sending  the  bill  in  to  Madge)  all- that  would  have 
been  at  her  command,  had  not  the  speculation  with  regard  to 
Madge's  marriage  failed,  to  make  the  most  of  the  assets  that 
remained  to  her.  And  the  more  she  thought  of  them,  unat- 
tractive as  they  had  seemed  at  first,  the  more  they  seemed  to 
her  to  have  a  promising  air.  Philip  was  immensely  wealthy, 
and  Evelyn  was  poor,  that  was  unfortunately  undeniable; 
but  Evelyn — regarding  him  as  a  property — had  certainly 
prospects  which  Philip  had  not,  and  though  nothing  could 
quite  make  up,  to  her  mind,  for  the  loss  of  much  tangible 
wealth,  yet  Evelyn  with  his  brilliant  gifts  might  easily  be  a 
rich  man,  while  even  now  he  was  a  much  more  rising  figure 
socially  than  the  other.  People  talked  about  him,  admired  his 
cleverness  and  charm,  asked  to  be  introduced  to  him.  All 
these  merits,  it  is  true,  she  had  not  seen  in  those  days  at 
Pangbourne,  when  she  looked  upon  him  merely  as  an  impos- 
sible young  artist,  but  since  that  impossible  young  artist  had 
become  an  inevitable  son-in-law,  it  was  wise  to  take  him  into 
account.  So  her  welcome  to  both  was  going  to  be  unre- 
served. 

They  arrived,  just  as  Lady  Ellington  had  arrived,  after 
the  rest  of  the  party  had  gone  in  to  dinner,  and  their  host  and 
hostess  came  out  into  the  hall  as  usual  to  meet  them.  Madge, 
it  must  be  confessed  had  gone  through  a  bad  quarter  of  an 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  279 

hour  of  anticipatory  shyness  as  they  got  near;  but  this  on 
arrival  she  found  to  have  been  a  superfluous  piece  of  self-in- 
flicted discomfort,  for  Lady  Dover  was  absolutely  natural, 
and  all  that  was  required  of  her  was  that  she  should  be 
natural  too. 

"  Ah,  dear  Madge,"  she  said,  "  how  nice  to  see  you  and 
Mr.  Dundas.  And  we  have  such  a  surprise  for  you ;  your 
mother  is  here  still.  We  persuaded  her  to  delay  her  de- 
parture a  couple  of  days  in  order  just  to  have  a  glimpse  of 
you.  We  call  her  Lady  Salmon,  and  are  eating  a  fish  she 
caught  only  this  afternoon." 

She  turned  to  welcome  her  other  guests,  when  Lady  El- 
lington also  followed  her  from  the  dining-room. 

"  My  dearest  Madge,"  she  cried,  kissing  her,  "  this  is  too 
delightful.  How  well  you  are  looking.  But  did  you  only 
wear  this  thin  cloak  for  your  drive ;  surely  that  was  rash  ? 
How  are  you,  dear  Evelyn?  This  is  nice.  I  could  not  help 
coming  out  of  dinner  to  have  a  glimpse  of  you.  You  have 
brought  no  maid,  Madge?" 

"  Dear  mother,  I  haven't  got  one  to  bring." 

"  No  ?  Evelyn,  she  must  have  a  maid.  But  Parkins,  of 
course,  shall  attend  to  you  here.  Now  you  must  go  and 
dress." 

That  her  mother  was  still  in  the  house  had  been  absolutely 
a  surprise  to  Madge,  but  her  welcome  fully  endorsed  the 
cordiality  of  her  letter.  She  had  not  seen  her  since  that 
afternoon  in  July  when  she  had  come  to  Evelyn's  studio,  and 
whatever  had  caused  this  complete  and  radical  change  she 
was  grateful  to  it.  It,  too,  bore  its  meaning  as  clearly 
stamped  as  did  Lady  Dover's  greeting;  whatever  had  hap- 
pened, had  happened  but  the  past  was  over. 

Everyone  in  the  house,  indeed  taking  the  time  from  their 
hostess,  welcomed  them  with  a  very  special  cordiality.  Lady 
Dover,  in  her  quiet,  neat  way,  had  dropped,  casually  enough, 
but  letting  the  point  of  her  observations  be  fully  seen,  little 
remarks  to  most  members  of  her  party  on  the  very  great 
pleasure  she  anticipated  from  the  visit  of  the  Dundases. 
They  were  both  so  charming,  it  was  no  wonder  that  every- 
one liked  them.  The  meaning  of  this  was  explicit  enough, 
and  put  without  any  hint  of  patronising,  or,  indeed,  of  doing 
a  kindness;  and  though  Lady  Ellington  had  reflected  that 
people  followed  Lady  Dover's  lead  just  because  she  was 


280  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

ordinary  and  they  were  ordinary,  it  might  be  questioned 
whether  she  herself  could  have  given  the  lead  so  gently,  for 
it  hardly  appeared  a  lead  at  all,  or  so  successfully,  for  every- 
body followed  it.  From  the  fragments  of  Lady  Dover's 
ordinary  conversation  already  indicated,  it  may  not  unfairly 
be  gathered  that  she  perhaps  lacked  brilliance  in  her  talk, 
and  was  not  possessed  of  any  particular  intellectual  distinc- 
tion. But  after  all,  the  hardest  art  to  practise  is  the  art  of 
living  according  to  one's  tastes,  a  thing  which  she  certainlv 
succeeded  admirably  in  doing,  and  the  hardest  medium  to 
work  in,  more  difficult  by  far  than  metal  or  marble  or  oils,  is 
men  and  women.  But  her  manipulation  of  them  was  master- 
ly, and,  to  crown  it,  she  did  not  seem  to  manipulate  at  all. 

In  this  instance,  certainly,  the  subtlest  diplomatist  could 
not  with  all  his  scheming  have  produced  a  more  complete 
result.  Mr.  Dennison,  as  has  been  seen,  had  on  the  tip  of 
his  tongue  a  conclusion  disparaging  in  the  highest  degree 
to  Evelyn  and  his  art.  Gladys  Ellington  had  let  things  even 
more  bitter  pass  the  tip  of  her  tongue,  Madge's  mother  had 
felt  not  so  long  ago  that  the  shipwreck  was  total,  and  that 
there  was  no  salvage.  Yet  Lady  Dover,  with  just  a  little 
repetition  of  the  same  sentence  or  two,  had  swept  all  these 
things  away,  as  a  broom  with  a  couple  of  strokes  demolishes 
all  the  weavings  of  spiders,  and  through  the  unobscured 
windows  the  sun  again  shines.  In  fact  the  volte-face  of  so- 
siety  had  been  begun  at  any  rate  with  immense  precision  and 
certainty;  on  the  word  of  Lady  Dover,  who  was  in  com- 
mand, this  particular  company  had  turned  right  about  with 
the  instantaneousness  which  is  the  instinct  of  a  well-drilled 
troop. 

In  effect  the  whole  social  balance  of  power  was  changed 
from  the  moment  of  their  appearance.  Evelyn,  as  natural 
in  his  way,  but  that  a  more  vivacious  one,  than  Lady  Dover, 
gave  a  brilliant  sketch  of  their  arrival — third  class — at 
Golspie  Station,  and  the  adjustment  of  social  distinction 
consequent.  Also,  he  had  prophesied  it,  Madge  would  bear 
him  out  in  that,  and  he  reproduced  admirably  Madge's  face 
from  behind  the  Scotsman  which  had  been  so  kindly  lent  her. 
Mr.  Osborne  made  one  attempt  to  reconstitute  himself  the 
life  and  soul  of  the  party  when  he  addressed  Gladys  as  Lady 
Grilse,  and  unfolded  to  Madge,  who  sat  next  him,  the  his- 
tory of  that  remarkable  piece  of  wit,  meaning  to  follow  it  up 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

by  the  sequel  (sequels  were  usually  disappointing,  but  this 
was  an  agreeable  exception)  of  the  true  circumstances  under 
which  her  mother  had  been  called  Lady  Salmon.  But  Madge 
had  cut  the  sequel  short,  without  any  ironical  purpose,  but 
simply  because  she  wanted  to  listen  to  and  contradict  the 
libels  Evelyn  was  telling  of  her  conduct  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  table. 

"  How  very  amusing,"  she  said.  "  You  called  her  Lady 
Grilse  (I  see,  do  I  not),  because  she  had  caught  one.  Eve- 
lyn, I  said  nothing  of  the  kind;  I  only  said  that  I  rather 
liked  the  smell  of  a  cigarette." 

But  her  quite  literal  and  correct  explanation  of  Mr.  Os- 
borne's  joke  was  fatal  to  the  joke ;  it  was  a  pricked  bladder, 
it  would  never  be  repeated  any  more. 

Then  came  the  deposition  of  the  Royal  Academician.  Mr. 
Dennison  had  finished  his  picture  of  the  upper  glen  only  that 
afternoon,  and  the  occasion  was  therefore  solemn.  So  was 
he. 

"  Yes,  Lady  Dover,"  he  was  saying,  "  I  only  touched  the 
canvas  a  dozen  times  to-day,  yet  I  have  done,  as  I  said,  a 
full  day's  work.  C'est  le  dernier  pas  qui  coiite;  it  is  on  those 
last  touches  that  the  whole  thing  depends.  I  knew  when  I 
went  out  this  morning  that  I  had  not  got  what  I  meant;  I 
knew,  too,  that  it  was  nearly  there,  and  it  is  that  "  nearly" 
that  is  yet  so  far.  There  was  the  shadow  of  a  cloud,  if  you 
remember,  over  the  bank  of  gorse." 

"  Oh,  I  thought  that  shadow  was  quite  perfect,"  said  Lady 
Dover.  "  I  hope  you  have  not  touched  it." 

"  It  has  gone,"  said  Mr.  Dennison,  as  if  announcing  the 
death  of  a  near  relation  who  had  left  him  money,  for  though 
his  voice  was  mournful,  there  was  a  hint  of  something  com- 
fortable coming.  "  Gone.  I  saw  I  could  not  do  it  so  as  to 
make  it  true." 

He  looked  up  at  this  tragic  announcement  and  caught  Eve- 
lyn's eye. 

"  Mr.  Dundas,  I  am  sure,  will  bear  me  out,"  he  said.  "  We 
poor  artists  are  bound,  however  it  limits  us,  to  put  down  only 
what  we  know  is  true.  We  are  not  poets  but  chroniclers." 

"  Oh,  Evelyn,  and  you've  been  telling  such  lies  about  me," 
said  Madge,  from  the  other  side. 

"  Chroniclers,"  resumed  Mr.  Dennison.  "  When  we  feel 
sure  we  are  right  we  record  our  impression.  But  unless 


282  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

that  certainty  of  vision  comes  to  us,  we  must  be  honest,  we 
must  not  attempt  a  vague  impression  merely.  Is  it  not  so  ?" 

Evelyn's  face  looked  extraordinarily  vital  and  boyish  as  he 
leaned  forward. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  agree  in  the  least,"  he  said.  "  I  think  we 
always  ought  to  try  to  record  just  those  suggestions — those 
vaguenesses — which  you  say  you  leave  out.  Look  at  '  La 
Gioconda.'  What  did  Andrea  mean  us  to  think  about  that 
sphinx  ?  I  don't  know,  nor  do  you.  And,  what  is  more  cer- 
tain than  even  that,  nor  did  he  know.  Did  he  mean  what 
Walter  Pater  said  he  meant?  It  again  is  quite  certain  he 
did  not.  No,  I  think  every  picture  ought  to  ask  an  unan- 
swerable riddle,  any  picture,  that  is  to  say,  which  is  a  picture 
at  all,  a  riddle  like  '  Which  came  first,  the  hen  or  the  egg  ?' 
Surely  anything  obvious  is  not  worth  painting  at  all." 

Mr.  Dennison  had  clearly  not  thought  of  things  in  this 
light.  It  was  not  thus  that  the  ordnance  map  of  Sutherland 
would  be  made. 

"  An  amusing  paradox,"  he  said.  "  Nobody  is  to  know 
anything  about  a  picture,  especially  the  man  who  painted  it. 
Is  that  correct  ?" 

His  tone  had  something  slightly  nettled  about  it,  and  Eve- 
lyn's imperturbable  good  humour  and  gaiety  might  perhaps 
represent  the  indifference  of  the  nettles  towards  the  hand 
they  had  stung. 

"  Yes,  just  that,"  he  said.  "  Take  any  of  the  arts.  Surely 
it  is  because  a  play  has  a  hundred  interpretations  that  it  is 
worth  seeing,  and  because  a  hundred  different  people  will 
experience  a  hundred  different  emotions  that  an  opera  is 
worth  listening  to.  And  the  very  fact  that  when  we  hear 
'  The  jolly  roast  beef  of  old  England '  we  are  all  irresistibly 
reminded  of  the  jolly  roast  beef  of  old  England  shows  that 
it  is  a  bad  tune." 

Mr.  Dennison  waved  his  hand  in  a  sketchy  manner. 

"  I  have  not  the  pleasure  of  knowing  that  tune,"  he  said ; 
"  but  when  I  paint  the  upper  glen  here,  I  mean  it  to  produce 
in  all  beholders  that  perception  of  its  particular  and  individ- 
ual beauty  which  was  mine  when  I  painted  it.  And  when 
you  exercise  your  art,  your  exquisite  art,  over  a  portrait,  you, 
I  imagine,  mean  to  make  the  result  produce  in  all  beholders 
the  beauty  you  saw  yourself." 

Evelyn  laughed. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  283 

"  Oh,  dear,  no,"  he  said.  "  You  see,  I  so  often  see  no 
beauty  in  my  sitters,  because  most  people  are  so  very  plain. 
But  I  believe  that  the  finest  portraits  of  all  are  those  which, 
when  you  look  at  them,  make  you  feel  as  you  would  feel  if 
you  were  on  intimate  terms  and  in  the  presence  of  the  people 
they  represent.  Besides,  people  are  so  often  quite  unlike 
their  faces;  in  that  case  you  have  to  paint  not  what  their 
faces  are  like  but  what  they  are  like." 

Mr.  Dennison's  tone  was  rising  a  little;  that  impressive 
baritone  could  never  fee  shrill,  but  it  was  as  if  he  wanted  to 
be  a  tenor. 

"  Ah,  that  explains  a  great  deal,"  he  said ;  "  it  explains 
why  sometimes  I  find  your  portraits  wholly  unlike  the  people 
they  represent.  And  the  conclusion  is  that  if  I  knew  them 
better,  I  should  find  them  more  like." 

"  That  is  exactly  what  I  mean,"  said  Evelyn. 

But  here  Lady  Dover  broke  in. 

"  You  must  have  some  great  talks,  Mr.  Dundas,"  she  said, 
"  with  Mr.  Dennison ;  it  is  so  interesting  to  hear  different 
points  of  view.  One  cannot  really  grasp  a  question,  can  one, 
unless  one  hears  both  sides  of  it.  I  think  Lady  Ellington  has 
finished.  Let  us  go." 

But  the  verdict  over  this  little  passage  of  arms  was  unani- 
mous ;  Mr.  Dennison  was  no  longer  in  anyone's  mind  the 
pope  and  fountain-head  of  all  art  and  all  criticism  thereon. 
His  impressiveness  had  in  the  last  ten  minutes  fallen  into 
the  disrepute  of  pomposity,  his  grave  pronouncements  were 
all  discredited ;  a  far  more  attractive  gospel  had  been  enun- 
ciated, far  more  attractive,  too,  was  this  new  evangelist. 
And  as  Lady  Dover  passed  him  on  the  way  out  she  had  one 
more  word. 

"  That  is  a  delightful  doctrine,  Mr.  Dundas,"  she  said. 
"  You  must  really  do  a  portrait  of  yourself,  and  if  we  think 
it  is  unlike,  the  remedy  will  be  that  we  must  see  more  of 
you." 

Evelyn  drew  his  chair  next  to  the  Academician;  he  had 
heard  the  rise  of  voice  and  seen  the  symptoms  of  perturba- 
tion, to  produce  which  there  was  nothing  further  from  his 
intention. 

"  I'm  afraid  I  talk  awful  rot,"  he  said,  with  the  most  dis- 
arming frankness. 

Now  Mr.  Dennison  was  conscious  of  having  been  rather 


284  THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

rude  and  ruffled,  he  was  also  conscious  that  Evelyn's  temper 
had  been  calmer  than  the  moon.  He  felt,  too,  the  charm  of 
this  confession,  which  was  so  evidently  not  premeditated  but 
natural. 

"  But  that  does  not  diminish  my  pleasure  in  meeting  you, 
Mr.  Dundas,"  he  said. 

Afterwards  the  same  triumphant  march  continued.  Mr. 
Dennison  even  showed  to  Madge  how  a  couple  of  his  most 
astounding  conjuring  tricks  were  done,  and  Lady  Ellington 
talked  to  her  son-in-law  in  a  corner  about  Madge,  until  the 
council  of  war  summoned  them  to  debate.  Then,  when  it 
was  decided  that  Madge  should  join  the  fishmongers  on  the 
river,  Mr.  Osborne  instantly  suggested  that  she  would  be  Mrs. 
Sea-Trout,  and  though  a  cavilling  mind  might  find  in  this  but 
a  futile  attempt  to  establish  himself  once  more  as  the  life  and 
soul  of  the  party,  it  was  not  indeed  so,  but  meant  merely  as 
a  compliment,  a  tribute  to  Madge.  Then,  when  the  council 
of  war  was  over,  more  remarkable  things  happened,  for  the 
whole  party  played  Dumb-Crambo  till  long  after  half-past 
ten,  quite  forgetful,  apparently,  how  important  it  was  to  get 
a  good  rest  after  all  the  day  spent  in  the  open  air.  How 
such  a  subversion  of  general  usage  occurred  no  one  knew, 
but  certainly  there  was  something  in  Evelyn  which  conduced 
to  silly  gaiety.  And  nobody  was  a  whit  the  worse  for  it, 
while  the  effects  of  the  moon-light  on  the  hills  opposite, 
which  had  nightly  been  the  admiration  of  the  whole  party, 
went  totally  unheeded,  and  all  the  exquisite  lights  and 
shadows,  the  subtlety  of  which  it  had  become  the  office  of 
Mr.  Dennison  to  point  out  and  Lady  Dover  to  appreciate, 
might  never  have  been  in  view  at  all. 

Lady  Ellington  went  with  Madge  to  her  room  when  the 
women  retired ;  she  had  not  really  meant  to  do  so,  but  Lady 
Dover's  "  Good  night"  had  made  this  necessary. 

"  Dear  Madge,"  she  had  said,  "  I  know  your  mother  will 
want  to  talk  to  you,  so  I  shall  not  come  to  see  you  to  your 
room.  I  hope  you  have  everything  you  want.  Breakfast  at 
a  quarter  to  ten,  or  would  you  rather  have  it  in  your  room 
after  your  journey  ?  We  have  been  so  late  to-night,  too.  How 
excellent  Mr.  Dundas's  last  charade  was.  Only  Mr.  Denni- 
son guessed.  Good  night,  dear." 

Lady  Ellington  was  thus,  so  to  speak,  forced  into  Madge's 
room ;  she  carried  with  her  her  glass  of  hot  water,  she  car- 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  285 

ried  also,  which  was  even  more  warming,  the  memory  of  the 
undisguised  welcome  that  not  only  Madge  but  the  impossi- 
ble artist  had  received.  She  almost,  in  fact,  reconsidered  her 
valuation  of  wealth ;  had  Philip  Home  appeared  in  Evelyn's 
place  this  evening,  she  knew  quite  well  he  would  not  have 
been  able  to  stir  the  deadly  gentility  of  this  house  half  so  well 
as  the  impossible  artist.  He  could  not  have  piped  so  as  to 
make  them  dance,  yet  this,  this  key  to  the  sort  of  set  which 
she  knew  really  mattered  most,  the  solid,  stolid,  respectable 
upper  class,  had  been  just  rats  to  his  piping.  His  natural  en- 
joyment, his  animal  spirits,  to  put  that  influence  at  its  lowest, 
had  simply  played  the  deuce  with  the  traditions  of  the  house, 
where  she  herself  never  ventured  to  lift  her  voice  in  opposi- 
tion or  amendment  to  what  was  suggested.  But  Evelyn's 
"  Oh,  let's  have  one  more  Dumb-Crambo"  had  revised  the 
laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians,  and  another  they  had.  Even 
at  the  formal  council  of  war  he  had  refused  to  say  what  he 
would  like  to  do  to-morrow,  a  thing  absolutely  unprece- 
dented. 

"  Oh,  may  I  go  and  shoot  if  it  is  fine,"  he  had  said,  "  and 
do  nothing  at  all  if  it  is  wet  ?  Don't  you  hate  shooting,  Lord 
Dover,  if  your  barrels  are  covered  with  rain?  And  birds 
look  so  awfully  far  away  in  the  rain.  But  I  should  love  to 
shoot  in  any  case,"  he  added.  "  My  goodness,  Madge,  think 
of  the  King's  Road  and  the  'buses." 

Yet  all  this  revolt  against  the  established  laws,  so  Lady 
Ellington  felt,  had  somehow  not  transgressed  those  laws  of 
propriety  which  she  was  so  careful  about  here.  Evelyn,  from 
ignorance,  no  doubt,  rode  rough-shod,  and  no  one  resented 
his  trespasses.  Even  Lord  Dover  had  been  stirred  into 
speech,  a  thing  he  did  not  usually  indulge  in  except  on  the 
subject  of  the  grouse  that  had  been  shot  and  the  fish  that  had 
been  killed  that  day. 

"  My  dear  boy,"  he  said,  "  you  shall  do  exactly  what  you 
like  to-morrow.  There  is  a  rod  for  you  on  the  river,  or  we 
should  like  another  gun  on  the  moor.  Tell  us  at  breakfast." 


All  this  Lady  Ellington  took  up  to  Madge's  room  with  her 
hot  water ;  that  Lady  Dover  would  be  as  good  as  her  word, 
and  that,  having  asked  these  two  to  Glen  Callan,  would  give 
them  a  genuine  welcome,  she  had  never  doubted,  but  what 


286  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

was  surprising  she  was  the  extreme  personal  success  of  her 
once  better-forgotten  son-in-law.  This  stronghold  and  cen- 
tral fortress  of  what  was  correct  and  proper  had  received  him 
as  if  he  was  almost  a  new  incarnation  of  what  was  correct 
and  proper,  or  if  that  was  putting  it  too  strongly,  at  any 
rate  as  if  no  question  of  his  correctness  and  propriety  had 
ever  arisen.  Surprising  though  it  was,  it  was  wholly  satis- 
factory. 

"  We  are  so  late,  dear  Madge,"  she  said,  "  that  I  can  only 
stop  a  minute.  Has  it  not  been  a  delightful  evening?" 

The  desire  to  say  something  salutary  struggled  long  in 
her  mind.  She  wanted  so  much  to  indicate  that  it  was  for 
the  sake  of  her  feelings,  even  in  consequence  of  her  own  in- 
tervention, that  so  charming  a  welcome  had  been  extended 
to  Madge  and  her  husband.  And  to  be  quite  truthful,  it  was 
not  the  instinct  for  truth  that  prevented  her,  but  the  quite 
certain  knowledge  that  Madge  would  not  stand  anything 
that  suggested  a  hint  of  patronisation.  Besides  the  house 
was  Lady  Dover's,  that  person  who,  as  Lady  Ellington  was 
beginning  to  learn,  was  natural  because  she  happened  to  be 
natural,  and  was  quite  truthful,  not  because  this  was  a  sub- 
tler sort  of  diplomacy.  That  naked  dagger  of  truth  was  an 
implement  that  required  a  deal  of  mail-coat  to  ward  off. 
Any  moment  Lady  Dover  might  wreck  any  scheming  policy 
with  one  candid  word,  and  the  corresponding  surprise  and 
candour  of  her  eyes.  But  the  welcome  had  been  so  warm 
that  Madge  could  not  but  be  warmed  by  it,  even  to  the  point 
of  confession. 

"  Oh,  mother,"  she  said,  "  I  have  been  disquieting  myself 
in  vain.  All  this  last  month  I  have  been  wondering  secretly 
whether  people  were  going  to  be  horrid  to  us.  How  sense- 
less it  all  was !  'I  have  been  thinking  all  sorts  of  things." 

She  put  down  her  candle  and  drew  a  couple  of  chairs  to 
the  fire. 

"  I  have  had  all  sorts  of  thoughts,"  she  said.  "  You  see, 
you  did  not  write  to  me.  I  thought  you  might — well,  might 
have  washed  your  hands  of  me.  I  thought  that  people  like 
Lady  Dover  would  think  I  had  been  heartless  and  Evelyn 
worse  than  heartless.  I  was  hopelessly  wrong ;  everybody  is 
as  nice  as  possible.  But,  heavens,  how  I  have  eaten  my 
heart  out  over  that  all  this  month  in  London !" 

She  poked  the  fire  with  a  certain  viciousness,  feeling  that 


THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN  287 

she  pricked  these  bubbles  of  senseless  fear  as  she  pricked  the 
bubbling  gas  of  the  burning  coal. 

"  All  in  vain,"  she  said ;  "  I  have  been  making  myself — no, 
not  miserable,  because  I  can't  be  otherwise  than  happy,  but 
disquieted  with  all  sorts  of  foundationless  fears.  I  thought 
people  would  disregard — yes,  it  is  that — would  disregard 
Evelyn  and  me;  would  talk  of  the  fine  day  instead.  And 
then,  you  see,  Evelyn  would  also  have  nothing  to  do,  nobody 
would  want  to  be  painted  by  him.  We  should  be  miserably 
poor;  he  would  have  to  paint  all  sorts  of  things  he  had  no 
taste  for  just  to  get  a  guinea  or  two  and  keep  the  pot  boiling. 
Ah,  I  shouldn't  have  minded  that — the  poverty,  I  mean — but 
what  I  should  mind  would  be  that  he  should  have  to  work  at 
what  he  felt  was  not  worth  working  at.  Don't  you  see?" 

Never  perhaps  before  had  Madge  so  given  herself  away 
to  her  mother.  Lady  Ellington's  system  had  been  to  snip  off 
all  awkward  shoots,  and  train  the  plant,  so  to  speak,  in 
such  a  way  as  should  make  it  most  suitable  as  a  table  orna- 
ment. The  table  for  which  it  was  destined,  it  need  hardly 
be  remarked,  was  an  opulent  table.  There  was  to  be  no 
wasting  of  sweetness  on  the  desert  air;  Mayfair  was  to 
inhale  its  full  odour.  And  as  things  now  stood,  the  desti- 
nation of  this  flower  was  as  likely  to  be  Mayfair  as  ever. 
Lady  Ellington  respected  success,  nobody  more  so,  nor  was 
there  anything  she  respected  so  much,  and  on  a  rapid  review 
of  the  evening,  the  success  she  felt  inclined  to  respect  most 
was  that  of  her  impossible  son-in-law.  If  a  plebiscite  for 
popularity  had  knocked  at  the  doors  of  the  occupied  bed- 
rooms, she  had  no  doubt  as  to  the  result  of  the  election. 
There  was  nothing  left  for  her  but  to  retract,  wholly  and 
entirely,  all  her  own  resentment  and  rage  at  the  marriage. 
And  since  this  had  to  be  done,  it  was  better  done  at  once. 

"  Dearest  Madge,"  she  said,  "  how  foolish  of  you  to  make 
yourself  miserable!  Of  course  at  first  I  was  vexed  and 
troubled  at  it  all,  and  I  was,  and  am  still,  very  sorry  for 
Philip.  But  though  I  did  wish  that  certain  things  had  not 
happened,  and  that  others  had — I  mean  I  wish  that  you  had 
been  in  love  with  Philip,  for  I  am  sure  you  would  have  been 
very  happy,  yet  since  it  was  not  to  be  so,  and  since  you 
fell  in  love  with  Evelyn,  what  other  issue  could  I  have 
desired?" 

Suddenly,  quick  as  a  lizard  popping  out  and  in  again  of 


288  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

some  hole  in  the  wall,  there  flashed  through  Madge's  mind 
the  impression — "  I  don't  believe  that."  She  could  not  be 
held  responsible  for  it,  for  it  was  not  a  thought  she  con- 
sciously entertained.  It  just  put  its  head  out  and  said  "  Here 
I  am."  What,  however,  mattered  more  was  that  this  was 
her  mother's  avowed  declaration  now ;  these  were  the 
colours  anyhow  she  intended  to  sail  under.  She  had  been 
launched  anew,  so  to  speak,  with  regard  to  her  attitude 
towards  her  daughter,  and  Lady  Dover  had  christened  her, 
and  broken  a  bottle  of  wine  over  her  for  good  luck. 

But  having  made  her  declaration,  Lady  Ellington  thought 
she  had  better  be  moving.  From  a  child  Madge  had  been 
blessed  with  a  memory  of  hideous  exactitude,  which  enabled 
her,  if  she  choose,  to  recall  conversations  with  the  most 
convincing  verbal  accuracy,  and  Lady  Ellington  did  not 
feel  equal,  off-hand,  to  explaining  some  of  those  flower-like 
phrases  which  had,  she  felt  certain,  fallen  from  her  in  her 
interview  with  Madge  after  the  thunderstorm  in  the  New 
Forest,  if  perchance  the  fragrance  of  them  might  con- 
ceivably still  linger  in  her  daughter's  mind.  Nor  did  she 
wish  to  be  reminded,  however  remotely  (and  as  she  thought 
of  this  she  made  the  greater  speed)  of  the  letter  from  Madge 
to  Evelyn  which  had  lain  in  the  hall  one  afternoon  as  she 
came  in,  with  regard  to  which  her  maternal  instinct  had 
prompted  her  to  take  so  strong  a  line.  So  she  again  referred 
to  the  lateness  of  the  hour,  "  all  owing  to  those  amusing 
games,"  and  took  the  rest  of  her  hot  water  to  finish  in  her 
own  room. 

But  she  need  not  have  been  afraid;  nothing  was  further 
from  Madge's  intention  than  to  speak  of  such  things,  and 
though  she  could  not  help  knowing  that  she  did  not  believe 
what  her  mother  had  said,  she  deliberately  turned  her  mind 
away,  and  so  far  from  exercising  her  memory  over  the 
grounds  of  her  disbelief,  she  put  it  all  away  from  her 
thoughts.  Such  generosity  was  easy,  her  present  great  hap- 
piness made  it  that. 

She  felt  in  no  mood  to  go  to  bed,  even  after  the  night 
she  had  spent  in  the  train,  and  from  the  thought  of  the  vain 
disquietude  she  had  felt  about  how  people  would  behave  to 
them,  she  passed  in  thought  to  another  disquietude  that 
she  told  herself  was  as  likely  to  be  as  vain  as  that.  For  what 
was  the  sense  of  measuring  and  gauging  and  taking  sound- 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  289 

ings  into  the  manner  of  Evelyn's  love  for  her,  and  comparing 
it  unfavourably,  to  tell  the  truth,  with  hers  for  him?  For 
she  knew  quite  well,  the  whole  fibre  of  her  being  knew,  that 
in  so  far  as  he  was  complete  at  all,  his  love  for  her  was 
complete;  there  were  no  reservations  in  it;  he  loved  her 
with  all  his  soul  and  strength.  Yet  when  the  best  thing 
in  the  world  was  given  her,  here  she  was  turning  it  over, 
and  wondering,  so  to  speak,  if  the  ticket  to  show  its  price 
was  still  on  it,  and  if  it  was  decipherable!  It  is  ill  to  look 
thus  at  any  gift,  but  when  that  gift  is  the  gift  of  love,  which 
is  without  money  and  without  price,  such  a  deed  is  little 
short,  so  she  told  herself  now,  of  a  desecration. 


The  next  day  bore  out  the  reliability  of  Lord  Dover's 
aneroid,  and  there  was  no  fear  of  Evelyn  finding  rain-drops 
on  his  gun-barrel.  The  Honourable  Company  of  Fish- 
mongers— Mr.  Osborne  was  at  it  again — went  to  the  river, 
Mr.  Dennison  to  a  further  point  of  view  up  the  glen,  and 
the  shooters  to  the  moor.  They  started  a  little  before  the 
party  for  the  river,  and  Madge  saw  them  off  at  the  door. 
They  were  to  shoot  over  a  beat  of  moor  not  far  from  the 
house,  which  would  bring  them  close  to  the  river  by  lunch- 
time,  and  it  was  arranged  that  both  parties  should  lunch 
together.  Gladys  started  with  them,  for  she  was  going  to 
fish  up  the  river  from  the  lower  reaches;  Lady  Ellington 
and  Madge  would  begin  on  opposite  sides  at  the  top.  This 
would  bring  them  all  together  about  two  o'clock  at  what 
was  called  the  Bridge-pool,  where  Madge,  fishing  on  this 
side,  would  cross,  meeting  Lady  Ellington  and  Gladys,  who 
would  have  worked  up  from  below,  while  the  shooters  con- 
verged on  them  from  the  moor. 

It  would  indeed  have  been  a  sad  heart  that  did  not  rejoice 
on  such  a  morning,  while  to  the  happy  the  cup  must  over- 
flow. There  had  been  a  slight  touch  of  early  frost  in  the 
night,  which,  as  Madge  skirted  the  river  bank,  which  was 
still  in  shadow,  lay  now  in  thick,  diamond  drops  on  the  grass, 
ready  when  the  sun  touched  it  to  hover  for  a  moment  in 
wisps  of  thin  mist,  and  then  to  be  drawn  up  into  the  sparkle 
of  the  day.  Swift  and  strong  and  coffee-coloured  at  her 
feet  the  splendid  river  roared  on  its  way,  full  of  breakers 
and  billows  at  the  head  of  the  pools,  and  calming  down  into 


290  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

broad,  smooth  surfaces  before  it  quickened  again  into  the 
woven  ropes  of  water  down  which  the  river  climbed  to  the 
next  pool.  Every  pool,  too,  was  a  mystery,  for  who  knew 
what  silver-mailed  monster  might  not  be  oaring  his  way 
about  with  flicks  of  the  spade-like  tail  that  clove  the  waters 
and  sent  him  arrow-like  up  the  stream?  The  mystery  of 
it  all,  the  romance  of  the  gaudy  fly  thrown  into  this  seething 
tumult  of  foam  and  breaker,  its  circling  journey  (followed 
by  eager  eye  and  beating  heart)  that  might  at  any  moment 
be  interrupted  by  a  swirl  of  waters  unaccounted  for  by  the 
stream,  and  perhaps  the  sight  of  a  fin  or  a  silver  side ;  then 
a  sudden  check,  the  feeling  of  weight,  the  nodding  of  the 
tapering  rod  in  assent,  and  the  shrill  scream  of  the  reel — 
all  this,  all  the  possibility  of  every  moment,  the  excitement 
and  tension,  all  added  effervescence  to  the  vivid  happiness 
that  filled  Madge  and  inspired  all  she  did  with  a  sort  of 
rapture. 


So  step  by  step  she  made  her  way  down  the  first  pool ;  the 
broken  water  at  the  head  gave  no  reply  to  the  casting  of  the 
fly  upon  the  waters,  and  with  a  little  more  line,  and  still  a 
little  more  line  as  the  pool  grew  broader,  she  went  down 
to  the  tail.  There,  far  out  in  mid-stream,  was  a  big  sub- 
merged rock,  with  a  triangle  of  quiet  water  below  it,  and 
more  line  and  more  line  went  out  before  she  could  reach  it. 
Then — oh,  moment  of  joy! — the  fly  popped  down  on  the 
far  side  of  the  rock,  and  with  entrancing  little  jerks  and 
oscillations  of  the  rod,  she  drew  it  across  the  backwater. 
And  then — she  felt  as  if  it  must  be  so — the  dark  stream  was 
severed,  a  fin  cut  the  surface,  the  rod  nodded,  bent  to  a 
curve,  with  an  accelerating  whizz-z-z  out  ran  the  line,  and 
a  happy  fishmonger  looked  anxiously,  rapturously  at  her 
gillie. 

A  couple  of  hours  later  Madge  had  come  to  within  a 
hundred  yards  of  the  Bridge-pool,  her  fish  secure  in  the 
creel,  and  her  aspirations  for  it  reaching,  somewhat  san- 
guinely  as  she  knew,  as  high  as  sixteen  pounds.  The  Bridge- 
pool  itself  was  this  morning  part  of  Lady  Ellington's  water, 
for  on  Madge's  side  it  ran  swirling  and  boiling  round  a 
great  cliff  of  nearly  precipitous  rock,  some  fifty  feet  high, 
over  which  she  had  to  pass  before  getting  to  the  skeleton 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  2911 

wire  bridge  which  crossed  the  river  just  below  the  pool.  She 
could  see  her  mother  half-way  down  the  pool  already,  and 
called  to  her,  but  her  voice  was  drowned  by  the  hoarse  bass 
of  the  stream  as  it  plunged  from  rapid  to  rapid  into  the 
head  of  the  pool  below,  and  after  trying  in  vain  to  make  her 
hear,  and  communicate  the  glorious  tidings  of  the  fish, 
Madge  followed  her  gillie  up  the  steep,  rocky  pass  which 
led  over  this  cliff.  As  she  mounted  the  stony  stair,  steep 
and  lichen-ridden,  the  voice  of  the  water  that  had  been  in 
her  ears  all  morning,  and  rang  there  still  like  the  tones  of 
some  secret,  familiar  friend,  grew  momently  more  faint, 
but  another  voice,  the  voice  of  the  sunny  noon,  as  friendly 
as  the  other,  took  its  place,  and  grew  more  intense  as  the 
first  faded.  From  the  shadow  and  coolness  and  water- 
voices  she  emerged  into  the  windy  sunlight  of  the  moor; 
bees  buzzed  hotly  in  the  heather,  making  the  thin,  spring- 
like stems  of  the  ling  quiver  and  nod  beneath  their  honey- 
laden  alightings,  swallows  and  martins  chided  shrilly  as 
they  passed,  and  peewits  cried  that  note  which  is  sad  or 
triumphant  according  to  the  mood  of  the  hearer.  Then  as 
she  gained  the  top  of  this  rocky  bastion,  sounds  more  indica- 
tive of  human  presences  were  in  the  air,  the  report  of  a  gun 
came  from  not  far  off,  and  immediately  afterwards  a  string 
of  shots.  Though  she  had  killed  her  salmon  with  such  gusto 
only  an  hour  or  two  before,  Madge  could  not  help  a  secret 
little  joy  at  the  thought  that  probably  this  particular  grouse 
had  run  the  gauntlet  of  all  the  guns  and  had  escaped  again 
for  another  spell  of  wild  life  on  the  heather.  Then,  follow- 
ing the  gillie's  finger,  she  saw  not  half  a  mile  away  the  shoot- 
ing party,  who  were  also  approaching  the  general  rendez- 
vous with  the  same  coincident  punctuality  as  she,  while  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  further  down  from  this  point  of  vantage 
she  could  see  Gladys  coming  up.  The  shooters  were  walk- 
ing in  line  across  a  very  steep  piece  of  brae  that  declined 
towards  the  river,  three  of  them,  but  with  the  gillies  and 
dog-men  seeming  quite  a  party.  The  hillside  was  covered 
with  heather,  and  sown  with  great  grey  boulders. 

Madge  was  a  few  minutes  before  the  others;  Gladys  had 
still  several  hundred  yards  to  go  before  she  reached  the 
bridge  which  was  now  but  thirty  yards  off,  while  Lady 
Ellington  had  still  the  cream  of  the  Bridge-pool  in  front  of 
her,  and  she  sat  down  on  a  big  rock  at  the  top  of  the  cliff 


292  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

while  the  rest  of  the  party  converged.  At  this  distance  it 
was  impossible  to  make  out  the  identity  of  tie  shooters; 
they  were  but  little  grey  blots  on  the  hillside,  bu  every  now 
and  then  the  muffled  report  of  a  shot  or  of  two  or  ,  hree  shots 
reached  her,  and  though  she  had  felt  glad  that  oi.e  grouse 
had  perhaps  escaped  the  death-tubes,  yet  she  felt  glad  an- 
other way  that  they  seemed  to  be  having  good  sport.  Then 
her  mind  and  her  eye  wandered;  she  looked  up  the  glen 
down  which  she  had  come;  she  saw  the  river  sparkling  a 
mile  away  in  torrent  of  sun-enlightened  foam ;  above  her 
climbed  the  heathery  hill,  crowned  with  the  larches  of  the 
plantation  round  the  house  itself,  and  from  the  house  the 
gleam  of  a  vane  caught  her  eve.  Beside  her  sat  the  brown- 
bearded  gillie,  in  restful  Scotch  silence,  ready  and  courteous 
to  reply  should  she  speak  to  him,  but  silent  till  that  hap- 
pened. And  "  pop-pop  "  went  the  guns  from  the  hillside 
opposite. 

Suddenly  he  got  up,  looking  across  no  longer  vaguely,  but 
with  focussed  eyes,  and  she  turned.  The  little  grey  specks 
of  men  were  closer,  and  it  was  possible  now  to  see  that  there 
was  some  commotion  among  them.  From  the  right  a  little 
grey  speck  was  running  down  hill;  from  the  left  another 
was  running  up.  And  that  was  all. 

Madge  watched  for  a  moment  or  two,  still  full  of  sunny 
thoughts.  Then  from  the  point  of  convergence  of  the  little 
grey  specks  one  started  running  towards  the  bridge  by  which 
she  would  cross.  At  that,  faint  as  reflected  starlight,  an 
impulse  of  alarm  came  to  her.  But  it  was  so  slight  that  no 
trace  of  it  appeared  in  her  voice. 

"  What  is  happening,  do  you  think  ?"  she  asked  the  gillie. 

But  the  courteous  Scotsman  did  not  reply;  he  gazed  a 
moment  longer,  and  then  ran  down  the  steep  descent  to  the 
bridge.  And  in  Madge  the  faint  feeling  of  alarm  grew 
stronger,  though  no  less  indefinable,  as  she  looked  at  the 
leaping  little  grey  speck  growing  every  moment  larger.  At 
last  she  saw  who  it  was ;  it  was  Mr.  Osborne  jumping  and 
running  for  all  he  was  worth.  At  that  she  followed  her 
gillie,  and  hurried  after  him  across  the  wire  bridge.  And 
as  if  a  drum  had  beat  to  arms,  legions  of  fears  no  longer 
indefinable  leaped  into  her  brain  in  hideous  tumult. 

A  hundred  yards  ahead  her  gillie  had  met  the  running 
figure,  and  in  a  moment  he  had  slung  off  the  creel  and  started 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  293 

to  run  towards  her,  leaving  Mr.  Osborne  to  drop  down,  as 
if  exhausted,  in  the  heather. 

"  What  is  it  ?"  she  cried  as  he  approached. 

"  An  accident,  ma'am,"  he  said.    "  I  don't  know  what." 

Madge  did  not  delay  him,  but  went  on  towards  Mr. 
Osborne.  As  she  got  near  he  sprang  up  from  his  seat. 

"  Ah,  my  dear  Mrs.  Dundas,"  he  said ;  "  don't  go — don't 
go!" 

His  panting  breath  made  him  pause  a  moment,  but  he 
looked  at  her  face  of  agony  and  apprehension,  and,  clench- 
ing his  hands,  went  on. 

"  No,  not  killed ;  there  is  nobody  dead.  But  there  has  been 
an  accident,  a  ricochet  off  one  of  those  rocks.  Someone  has 
been — yes,  my  poor,  dear  lady,  it  is  your  husband.  But 
don't  go ;  it  is  terrible." 

But  before  he  could  say  more  to  stop  her  she  had  passed 
him,  and  was  running  up  the  hill. 


NINETEENTH 


fINCE  the  moment  when  the  ice  had  been  broken 
between  Philip  and  Tom  Merivale,  and,  what  was 
perhaps  more  vital,  since  that  terrible  ice  round 
Philip's  heart  had  begun  to  thaw,  talk  between 
them,  till  then  so  scanty  and  superficial,  had  taken  a  plunge 
into  the  depths  of  things,  into  those  cool,  wavering  obscuri- 
ties that  lie  round  the  springs  of  life  and  death.  And  the 
import  of  this  was  perhaps  no  less  weighty  to  the  Hermit 
than  it  was  to  Philip ;  never  before  had  he  unveiled,  not  his 
mystery,  but  his  exceeding  simplicity,  to  another,  except 
in  so  far  as  half-laughing  paradox  and  the  apparent  marvel 
of  the  nightingale  that  sat  on  his  hand  and  sang  could  be 
considered  as  unveiling.  But  he  was  very  conscious  in 
himself,  with  that  premonition  that  birds  and  beasts,  and 
all  the  living  things,  that  have  not  had  their  natural  instincts 
blunted  for  generations  by  indoor  and  artificial  life,  possess, 
that  something  critical  was  at  hand.  What  that  was  he 
could  not  guess,  and,  indeed,  refrained  from  trying  to  do  so. 
But  for  months  now  he  had  waited  for  some  revelation,  as  a 
neophyte  waits  for  a  further  initiation.  As  far  as  he  could 
tell  he  knew  all  the  secrets  of  that  antechamber  in  which  he 
waited.  Up  to  a  certain  point  his  knowledge  was  complete 
and  consolidated ;  the  joy  of  animate  nature  was  utterly  his, 
no  thrush  or  scudding  blackbird  knew  better  than  he  the 
joy.  that  comes  from  the  mere  fact  of  life  and  air  and  food 
and  sleep  and  drink,  of  which  every  moment  brings  its  own 
reward.  To  none,  too,  could  he  have  stated  this  so  easily 
as  to  his  old  friend,  and  the  very  fact  that  Philip  was  but 
now  just  beginning  to  emerge  from  black  and  bitter  waters, 
made  his  understanding  of  it  more  piercing.  It  was  the 
fresh,  vital  air  to  a  man  who  has  sunk  and  nearly  been 
drowned  in  a  pool,  from  the  depths  of  which  he  has  but 
just  had  strength  to  struggle,  and  lie  with  eyes  but  half  open 
and  mouth  that  could  only  just  drink  in  the  freshness  of 
294 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  295 

the  day  God  made.  And  it  was  this  very  sunlight  and 
freshness  of  air  which  penetrated  to  those  other  depths 
which  were  the  springs  of  life  and  death.  From  the  bitter 
depth  of  his  own  hell  Philip  had  swum  up  into  life,  and  yet 
as  he  went  up  he  was  getting  down,  by  the  same  movement, 
into  other  depths;  but  these  were  cool,  and  no  blackness 
mingled  with  their  veiled  obscurities. 

Early  September  this  year  in  the  New  Forest  had  harked 
back  to  June.  After  that  day  or  two  of  storm  and  hot  rain, 
the  weather  had  cleared  again,  and  a  week  of  golden  hours, 
golden  with  the  sun  by  day  and  with  the  myriad  shining  of 
the  stars  by  night,  made  one  almost  believe  that  time  had 
stopped,  or  that  its  incessant  wheel  had  begun  to  run  back 
to  the  clean  and  early  days  of  the  world.  That  moment 
which  had  come  to  Philip,  when  the  outpouring  of  his  bit- 
terness and  resentment  were  stayed,  was  an  epoch  to  him, 
which  ranked  by  itself.  It  drew  away  from  his  other  days 
and  deeds,  it  was  a  leaven  that  worked  incessantly,  clouds 
cleared,  Marah  itself  began  to  grow  sweet,  and  splash  by 
splash  pieces  of  his  bitterness  dropped  like  stones  into  that 
sea  of  forgetfulness  and  forgiveness  which,  before  any  soul 
is  complete  and  ready  to  stand  before  God,  must  spread  from 
pole  to  pole.  The  determination  to  forget  in  most  cases,  as 
here,  sets  the  tides  on  the  flow;  forgiveness,  the  higher 
quality,  is  often  the  natural  sequel.  Yet  to  forget  a  grudge 
is  to  have  forgiven  it,  while  forgiveness  may  be  a  hard, 
metallic  thing — the  best  perhaps  of  which  we  are  capable — 
but  it  will  not  grow  soft  until  forgetfulness  has  come  as 
well.  The  cause  for  the  grudge  must  cease  to  exist  in  the 
mind  before  the  grudge  can  be  wholly  forgiven.  Poor 
Philip  was  not  near  that  yet,  but  still  bits  of  the  grudge 
kept  falling  into  the  sea  of  forgetfulness  as  from  the  stalac- 
titic  roof  of  a  cavern.  Some  dropped  on  the  beach  merely, 
and  were  still  hard  and  unabsorbed,  but  others  fell  fair,  and 
a  dead  splash  was  the  end  of  them. 


These  tranquil  golden  days  helped  it  all ;  while  the  huge 
beeches  grew  slim  and  straight  against  the  sky,  while  the 
warm,  wholesome  air  was  an  anaesthetic  to  his  pain,  and  while 
above  all  this  serene,  joyous  youth,  a  patent,  undeniable 
proof  of  the  practical  power  of  inward  happiness,  was  with 


296  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

him,  it  became  daily  more  impossible  to  nurse  and  cherish 
any  bitterness,  however  well  nourished. 

Philip  had  been  here  now  nearly  three  weeks,  and  for  the 
last  ten  days  he  had  lived  completely  cut  off  from  any  world 
but  this.  Telegrams  and  communications  at  first  had  fol- 
lowed him  from  the  City,  but  times  were  quiet,  and  he  had 
entrusted  his  junior  partner  with  all  power  to  act  in  his 
absence,  saying  also  that  he  felt  sure  that  no  business  need 
be  referred  to  him.  He  wanted  a  month's  complete  rest, 
and  if  any  news  or  call  for  a  decision  came  to  him  he  would 
disregard  it.  He  was  to  be  considered  as  at  sea;  nothing 
must  reach  him.  Also  he  had  begged  Tom  Merivale  not  to 
take  in  any  daily  paper  on  his  account ;  he  was  at  sea — that 
was  exactly  it — without  the  disadvantage  of  having  to  sleep 
in  a  birth  and  use  a  quarter-deck  for  exercise.  But  on  this 
transitory  planet  an  end  to  all  things  comes  sooner  or  later, 
even  when  those  things  are  as  imperishable  as  golden  days. 
And,  physically  and  spiritually,  the  end  was  very  near. 

They  had  dined  one  night  as  usual  on  the  verandah,  but 
for  the  first  time  for  ten  days  the  wonderful  twilight  of  stars 
was  quenched,  and  a  thick  blanket  of  cloud  again  overset 
the  sky,  and  the  heat  of  the  evening  portended  thunder. 
A  week  before  this  Merivale  had  told  his  friend  of  that 
thunderstorm  when  Madge  had  been  here  with  Evelyn,  and 
had  confessed  to  passive  complicity  in  their  love.  Philip  had 
not  resented  this  either  openly  or  secretly ;  Merivale  had  not 
encouraged  it;  he  had,  so  he  thought  to  himself,  but  seen 
that  it  was  inevitable.  And  to-night  the  thunderous  air 
brought  up  the  previous  storm  to  the  Hermit's  mind. 

"  The  traces  of  that  are  cleared  away,"  he  said.  "  The 
tree  that  was  struck  is  firewood  in  the  wood-shed  now. 
But  there  is  a  wound ;  the  senseless  fire  came  down  from 
Heaven ;  it  killed  a  beautiful  living  thing,  that  tree." 

They  had  finished  dinner,  and  Philip  turned  his  chair 
sideways  to  the  table. 

"  Yes,  and  where  is  the  compensation  ?"  he  said.  "  Surely 
that  is  needless  suffering  and  needless  death." 

"  Ah,  I  don't  believe  that.  You  and  I  say  it  is  needless, 
because  we  cannot  see  what  life  is  born  from  it.  Your  suf- 
fering, my  dear  fellow,  you  thought  that  gratuitous,  like  a 
lightning  flash,  but  it  isn't ;  you  know  that  now." 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

This  had  so  often  been  mentioned  between  them  that 
Philip  did  not  wince  at  it. 

"  1  take  it  on  trust  only,"  he  said,  "  but  the  proof  will 
come  when,  because  of  what  has  happened  to  me,  I  am 
kinder,  more  indulgent  to  others.  If  it  has  taught  me  that 
it  is  al!  good,  but  at  present  no  test  has  come.  I  have  but 
lived  here  with  you." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"  And  I  must  soon  get  back,"  he  said.  "  Your  metier  is 
here,  but  mine  isn't.  This  is  your  life,  it  has  been  my  rest 
and  my  healing  and  my  hospital.  But  when  one  is  well,  one 
has  to  go  back  again.  Oh,  I  know  that,  I  feel  it  in  my  bones. 
This  has  been  given  me  in  order  that  I  may  make  my  life 
again.  With  it  behind  me  I  have  to  go — I  should  be  a 
coward  if  I  did  not ;  I  should  tacitly  imply  that  I  '  gave  up ' 
if  I  did  not  face  things  again." 

He  drew  his  chair  a  little  closer  to  his  friend. 

"  Tom,  you  have  saved  me,"  he  said,  "  but  my  salvation 
has  to  be  proved.  It  is  all  right  for  you  to  stop  here,  that 
I  utterly  believe,  but  I  believe  as  utterly  that  it  is  not  for 
me.  I  must  go  back,  and  be  decent,  and  not  be  bitter.  I 
must  continue  my  normal  life,  I  must  play  Halma  with  my 
mother,  and  slang  the  gardeners  if  they  are  lazy.  Now,  dear 
old  chap,  since  my  time  here  will  be  short,  I  want  to  talk  to 
you  about  your  affairs.  Or  rather  I  want  you  to  talk  about 
them.  I  want  to  grasp  as  clearly  as  I  can  any  point  of 
view  which  is  not  my  own.  That  will  help  me  to  under- 
stand the — the  damnable  muddle  the  world  generally  has  got 
into.  It's  all  wrong;  I  can  see  that.  Nobody  goes  straight 
for  his  aim.  We  all — you  don't — we  all  compromise,  be- 
cause other  people  compromise.  Now  I  don't  want  to  do 
that  any  more.  I  want  to  see  my  aim,  and  go  straight  for  it. 
So  tell  me  yours,  and  let  me  criticise.  Any  point  of  view 
that  is  quite  clear  helps  one  to  believe  that  there  are  other 
points  of  view  as  clear,  if  one  could  but  see  them." 

A  tired  light  came  over  the  sky,  as  if  drowsy  eyelids  had 
winked.  Through  the  clouds  the  reflection  of  distant  light- 
ning illuminated  the  garden  for  a  moment.  There  was  a 
gap  in  the  trees  by  the  stream,  where  the  stricken  tree  had 
stood,  but  of  its  corpse  nothing  remained ;  it  had  all  been 
cut  up  and  taken  to  make  firewood  for  the  winter.  But  a 


298  THE   ANGEL   OF   PAIN 

hot  air  blew,  and  in  the  bushes  those  strange,  unaccountable 
noises  of  creaking  twigs  sounded  insistently  loud. 

"  Ah,  you  know  my  gospel  well  enough,"  said  Merivale. 
"  The  joy  of  life ;  the  joy  inherent  in  the  fact  of  life.  I  have 
really  nothing  more  to  tell  you  of  it — from  living  here  with 
me  you  know  it  all.  And  you  have  to  peel  life  like  an  orange, 
to  simplify  it,  to  take  the  rind  of  unnecessary  things  off, 
before  you  can  really  taste  it." 

"  Well,  speak  to  me  of  your  fear  then." 

"  I  have  no  fear." 

He  smiled  with  the  convincing,  boyish  smile,  that  is  pure 
happiness. 

"  Oh,  lots  of  things  may  happen,"  he  said,  "  but  I  assure 
you  that  I  don't  fear  them.  At  least,  I  don't  fear  them 
with  my  reason.  I  feel  convinced — and  that  is  a  lot  to  say — 
that  my  general  scheme  of  life  was  right  for  me.  Was? 
And  will  be.  The  future  holds  no  more  terrors  than  the 
past.  Indeed  the  two  terms,  which  sound  so  opposite  to 
most  people,  are  really  one.  Past  or  future,  it  is  I.  I  have 
pursued  the  joys  of  life,  not  beastly,  sensual  joys,  for  never 
have  I  had  part  in  them,  but  the  clean,  vital  joy  of  living. 
And  you  tell  me,  as  Evelyn  has  told  me,  that  there  are  vital 
pains  of  living,  as  clean  and  as  essential  as  those  joys.  Well, 
let  them  come.  I  am  ready.  They  can  come  to-night  if  they 
choose.  Ah,  the  huge  Bogey  of  pain  and  sorrow  may  come 
and  lie  on  my  chest,  like  a  nightmare.  But  my  point  is 
this " 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"  If  that  is  to  be,  if  that  is  essential,"  he  said,  "  I  give  it 
the  same  welcome  as  I  have  ever  given  to  joy.  It  may 
frighten  me  out  of  existence,  because  the  body  is  a  poor  sort 
of  thing,  and  an  ounce  of  lead  or  less  will  kill  it,  or,  what  is 
worse,  deprive  it  of  sight  or  hearing.  But  whatever  can 
happen  cannot  hurt  me,  this  me.  Do  you  tell  me  that  a 
rifle  bullet,  or  a  hangman's  noose  can  kill  me?  And  can  a 
frightful  revelation  of  all  the  sorrow  of  the  world,  and  its 
pain,  and  its  terror,  and  its  preying,  the  one  creature  on 
another,  touch  my  belief  that  life  is  triumphant,  and  that 
joy  is  triumphant  over  pain  ?  Oh,  I  can  believe  most  things, 
but  not  that.  Should  that  come,  I  daresay  my  stupid  flesh 
would  shrink,  shrink  till  it  died  if  you  like.  But  me?  How 
does  it  touch  me?" 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  299 

He  looked  round  with  a  sudden  startled  air,  even  as  the 
words  were  on  his  lips. 

'  Tramp,  tramp,"  he  said,  "  there  is  a  skipping  and  jump- 
ing in  the  bushes.  I  saw  a  frightful  big  goat  on  the  ridge 
to-day,  and  it  followed  me,  butting  and  sparring.  I  could 
almost  think  it  had  got  into  the  garden.  There  is  a  sort 
of  goaty  smell,  too.  Well,  it  can't  reach  me  in  the  hammock. 
Ah,  there  is  lightning  again:  there  is  going  to  be  a  storm 
to-night." 

"  Sleep  indoors,"  said  Philip  quietly.  He  was  quiet,  for 
fear  of  his  nerves.  But  Tom  laughed. 

"  I  should  rather  say  to  you  '  Sleep  outside,'  "  he  said. 
"  If  the  lightning  makes  another  shot  here,  it  will  certainly 
shoot  at  the  highest  thing,  and  the  house  is  much  higher 
than  my  hammock." 

He  looked  at  him  a  moment  in  silence,  with  the  pity  that 
is  akin  not  to  contempt,  but  to  love. 

"  Ah,  you  are  afraid  of  fear,"  he  said.  "  That  is  one 
degree  worse  than  anything  we  need  be  afraid  of.  It  is  of 
our  own  making,  too.  We  dress  up  Fear  like  a  turnip- 
ghost  and  then  scream  with  terror  at  it.  Or,  don't  you 
remember  as  a  child  making  faces  at  yourself  in  a  looking- 
glass  till  you  were  so  frightened  you  could  scarcely  move? 
That  is  what  most  of  us  do  all  our  lives." 

Again,  and  rather  more  vividly,  a  blink  of  lightning  was 
reflected  in  the  clouds,  and  from  far  off  the  thunder  mut- 
tered sleepily. 

"  So  when  I  go,"  asked  Philip,  "  I  can  think  of  you  as 
being  as  happy  and  fearless — as  certain  of  yourself  and  the 
scheme  of  the  world  as  ever  ?" 

Merivale  smiled. 

"  Yes,  assuredly  you  can  do  that,"  he  said,  "  and  though 
I  do  not  like  to  hear  you  talk  of  going,  of  course  I  know  you 
must.  If  you  stopped  here  you  would  get  bored  and  fidgetty. 
You  have  not  at  present  because  you  have  been  getting  well, 
and  in  convalescence  all  conditions,  so  long  as  one  is  allowed 
to  stop  still,  are  delightful.  But  your  place,  your  work  is 
not  here.  I  feel  that  as  strongly  as  you.  You  have  the 
harder  part;  you  have  to  go  back  and  sort  the  grains  of 
gold  from  the  great  lumps  of  worthless  alloy,  and  distin- 
guish many  things  that  glitter  from  the  royal  metal.  How- 
ever, you  know  all  that  as  well  as  I  do." 


300  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

He  leaned  forward  over  the  table,  and  looked  very  earn- 
estly at  Philip. 

"  Think  of  me  always  as  happy,"  he  said,  "  and  think 
of  me  as  of  a  man  who  is  waiting  in  an  antechamber,  wait- 
ing to  be  summoned  to  a  great  Presence.  At  least  that  is 
how  I  feel  myself,  how  strongly  and  certainly  I  cannot 
explain  to  you.  Here  am  I  in  this  beautiful  and  wonderful 
antechamber,  the  world  which  I  love  so,  in  which  I  have 
passed  days  and  months  of  such  extraordinary  happiness. 
But  at  one  end  of  the  antechamber  there  is  a  curtain  drawn, 
and  behind  that  is  the  Presence.  Soon  I  think  it  will  be 
drawn  back  and  I  shall  see  what  is  behind  it.  I  think  it 
will  be  drawn  soon,  for — all  this  imagery  is  so  clumsy  for 
what  is  so  simple — for  lately  the  curtain  has  been  stirred, 
so  it  seems  to  me,  from  the  other  side:  it  has  been  jerked 
so  that  often  I  have  thought  that  each  moment  it  was  to 
be  drawn  away,  whereas  till  lately  it  has  always  hung  in 
heavy,  motionless  folds.  And  I  am  waiting  in  front  of  it, 
conscious  still — oh,  so  fully  conscious — of  all  the  beautiful 
things  I  have  loved,  but  looking  at  them  no  longer,  for  I 
can  look  nowhere  but  at  the  curtain  which  stirs  and  is 
twitched  as  if  someone  is  on  the  point  of  drawing  it  back." 

He  paused  a  moment,  but  did  not  take  his  eyes  off  Philip, 
but  continued  looking  at  him  very  gravely,  very  affection- 
ately. 

"Of  course  I  cannot  help  guessing  what  lies  behind,"  he 
said,  "  and  conjecturing  and  reasoning.  It  may  be  several 
things ;  at  least  it  may  appear  under  several  forms,  but  of 
this  I  am  certain,  that  it  is  God.  And  will  there  be  a  blind- 
ing flash  of  joy,  which  shows  me  that  even  the  sorrow  and 
the  death  which  is  everywhere  is  no  less  part  of  perfection 
than  the  joy  and  the  life?  Even  now,  as  you  know,  in  my 
puny  little  attempts  to  be  happy  in  the  way  that  Nature  is 
happy,  youth  has  come  back  to  me  in  some  extraordinary 
manner,  and  when  I  see  what  I  shall  see,  will  immortal  life, 
lived  here  and  now,  be  my  portion  ?  I  don't  know  ;  I  think  it 
quite  possible.  And  if  that  is  so,  if  that  is  the  initiation — 
ah,  my  God !  that  impulse  of  joy  which  I  shall  receive  will 
spread  from  me  like  the  circles  in  a  pool  when  a  stone  is 
thrown  into  it." 

He  paused  again,  his  smooth  brown  hands  trembling  a 
little. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  301 

"  The  Pan-pipes,  too,"  he  said — "  they  are  never  silent 
now :  I  hear  them  all  the  time,  and  I  take  that  to  mean  that 
I  am  at  last  never  unconscious  of  the  hymn  of  life.  I  heard 
them  at  first,  you  know,  just  in  snatches  and  broken  stanzas, 
when  I  could  screw  myself  up  to  the  realisation  of  the  song 
without  end  and  without  words  that  goes  up  from  the  earth 
day  and  night.  Where  does  it  come  from?  As  I  told 
Evelyn,  I  neither  know  nor  care.  Perhaps  my  brain  con- 
ceives it,  and  sends  the  message  to  my  ears,  but  it  is  really 
simpler  to  suppose  that  I  hear  it,  just  as  you  hear  my  voice 
talking  to  you  now.  For  there  is  no  question  as  to  the  fact 
of  its  existence;  the  hymn  of  praise  does  go  on  forever, 
So,  perhaps,  in  my  small  way,  I  am  complete,  so  to  speak, 
with  regard  to  that.  Then — then  there  is  another  thing 
that  may  be  behind  the  curtain.  It  may  be  that  I  shall  be 
shown,  and  if  I  am  shown  this,  it  must  be  right  and  neces- 
sary— all  the  sorrow  and  pain  and  death  that  is  in  the  world. 
I  have  turned  my  back  on  it ;  I  have  said  it  was  not  for  me. 
But  perhaps  it  will  have  to  be  for  me.  And  that — to  use 
a  convenient  phrase — will  be  to  see  Pan." 

He  paused  on  the  word,  then  shook  his  hair  back  from 
his  forehead,  and  got  up. 

"  And  now  I  have  told  you  all,"  he  said. 

Philip  got  up,  too,  feeling  somehow  as  if  he  had  been 
mesmerised.  He  could  remember  all  that  Merivale  had 
said ;  it  was  strangely  vivid,  but  it  had  a  dreamlike  vivid- 
ness about  it ;  the  fabric,  the  texture,  the  colour  of  it,  for  all 
its  vividness,  was  unreal  somehow,  unearthly.  But  as  to 
the  reality  of  it  and  the  truth  of  it,  no  question  entered  his 
head.  He  had  never  heard  anything,  no  commonplace  story 
or  chronicle  of  indubitable  events  which  was  less  fantastic. 
He  looked  out  in  silence  a  moment  over  the  garden,  and 
though  half  an  hour  ago  he  had  been  vaguely  frightened 
at  the  thought  of  the  mysterious  and  occult  powers  that  keep 
watch  over  the  world,  yet  now  when  they  had  been  spoken 
of  with  such  frankness,  so  that  they  seemed  doubly  as  real 
as  they  had  before,  he  was  frightened  no  longer.  It  was, 
indeed,  as  Merivale  had  said ;  he  had  been  afraid  of  fear. 

It  was  already  very  late,  and  after  a  few  trivial  words  he 
went  indoors  to  go  up  to  bed.  As  he  got  to  the  bottom  of 
the  stairs  he  looked  back  once,  and  saw  his  friend  standing 
still  on  the  verandah,  with  his  face  towards  him.  And  as 


302  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

Philip  turned,  Merivale,  standing  under  the  lamp  in  his 
white  shirt  and  flannels,  with  collar  unfastened  at  the  neck 
and  sleeves  rolled  up  to  the  elbow,  smiled  and  nodded  to 
him. 

"  Good  night !"  he  said ;  "  sleep  well.     I  think  you  are 
learning  how  to  do  that  again." 


Philip  began  undressing  as  soon  as  he  got  to  his  room, 
feeling  unaccountably  tired  and  weary.  His  servant  slept 
in  a  room  just  opposite  him,  and  he  hesitated  for  a  moment 
as  to  whether  he  should  tell  him  not  to  call  him  in  the 
morning  till  he  rang,  for  he  had  that  heaviness  of  head 
which  only  satiety  of  sleep  entirely  removes.  But  it  was 
already  late,  and  the  man  had  probably  been  in  bed  and 
asleep  for  some  time.  So  he  closed  his  door,  drew  the  blind 
down  over  his  window,  and  put  out  his  light.  His  brain, 
for  all  the  vividness  of  that  evening's  talk,  seemed  absolutely 
numb  and  empty,  as  if  all  memory  were  dead,  and  he  fell 
asleep  instantly. 

He  slept  heavily  for  several  hours,  and  then  external 
sounds  began  to  mingle  themselves  with  his  dreams,  and  lie 
thought  he  was  in  a  large,  empty,  brown-coloured  hall  lit 
by  dim  windows  very  high  up,  through  which  a  faint,  tired 
light  was  peering.  But  now  and  again  the  squares  of  these 
windows  would  be  lit  up  for  a  moment  vividly  from  out- 
side, and  as  often  as  this  happened  some  low,  heavy,  tremu- 
lous sound  echoed  in  the  vault  above  him  like  a  bass  bourdon 
note.  He  was  conscious,  too,  that  many  unseen  presences 
surrounded  him ;  the  hall  was  thick  with  them,  and  they 
were  all  saying:  "  Hush-sh-sh !"  A  sense  of  deadly  oppres- 
sion and  coming  calamity  filled  him,  he  was  waiting  for 
something,  not  knowing  what  it  was.  Then  the  coils  of 
sleep  began  to  be  more  loosened,  and  before  long  he  awoke. 
His  room  looked  out  over  the  garden,  and  the  "  Hush-sh-sh  " 
was  but  the  rain  that  fell  heavily  on  to  the  shrubs  below  his 
window.  Then  the  light  and  the  tremulous  note  were  ex- 
plained too,  for  suddenly  tht  window  started  into  bright- 
ness, and  a  couple  of  seconds  after  a  sonorous  roll  of 
thunder  followed.  But  the  uneasiness  of  the  dream  had  not 
passed:  he  still  felt  frightfully  apprehensive.  All  desire  for 
sleep,  however,  had  left  him,  and  for  some  half  hour,  per- 


THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN  303 

haps,  he  lay  still,  listening  to  the  windless  rain,  for  the  night 
was  so  still  that  his  blind  hung  over  the  open  window  without 
tapping  or  stirring.  Then  with  curious  abruptness  the  rain 
ceased  altogether  and  there  was  dead  silence. 

Then  suddenly  a  frightful  cry  rent  and  shattered  the  still- 
ness, and  from  outside  a  screaming,  strangled  voice  called: 

"  Oh,  my  God !"  it  yelled.    "  Oh,  Christ !" 

For  one  moment  Philip  lay  in  the  grip  and  paralysis  of 
mortal  fear,  but  the  next  he  broke  through  it,  and  sprang 
out  of  bed,  and,  not  pausing  to  light  a  candle,  stumbled  to 
the  door.  At  the  same  moment  his  servant's  door  flew  open,, 
and  he  came  out  with  a  white,  scared  face.  He  carried  a 
lighted  candle. 

"  It  was  from  the  garden,  sir,"  he  said.  "  It  was  Mr. 
Merivale's  voice." 

Philip  did  not  answer,  but  went  quickly  downstairs,  fol- 
lowed by  the  man.  The  door  into  the  verandah  stood  open, 
as  usual,  and  he  hurried  out.  There  on  the  table  were  the 
cloth  and  the  remains  of  dessert ;  his  chair  stood  where  he 
had  sat  all  evening;  Merivale's  was  pushed  sideways.  The 
moon  was  somewhere  risen  behind  the  clouds,  for  thick  as 
they  were,  the  darkness  was  not  near  pitch,  and  followed 
by  the  servant,  the  light  of  whose  candle  tossed  weird,  mis- 
shapen shadows  about,  Philip  set  his  teeth  and  went  down 
towards  where  the  hammock  was  slung  in  which  Merivale 
usually  slept. 

That  strange,  pungent  smell,  which  he  had  noticed  more 
than  once  before,  was  heavy  in  the  air,  and  infinitely  stronger 
and  more  biting  than  it  had  been.  And  for  one  moment  his 
flesh  crept  so  that  he  stopped,  waiting  for  the  man  to  come 
up  with  the  light.  He  could  not  face  what  might  be  there 
alone. 

A  few  yards  further  on  they  came  in  sight  of  the  ham- 
mock. Something  white,  a  flannelled  figure,  glimmered 
there,  but,  like  some  strange,  irregular  blot,  something  black 
concealed  most  of  the  occupant.  Then  that  black  thing, 
whatever  it  was,  suddenly  skipped  into  the  air  and  ran  with 
dreadful  frolicsome  leaps  and  bounds  and  tappings  on  the 
brick  path  of  the  pergola,  down  to  the  far  end  of  the  garden, 
where  they  lost  sight  of  it.  Then  they  came  to  the  ham- 
mock. 

Merivale  was  sitting  up  in  it,  bunched  up  together  with 


304  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

his  head  drawn  back,  as  if  avoiding  some  deadly  contact. 
His  lips  were  drawn  back  from  his  teeth,  so  that  the  gums 
.showed,  his  eyes  were  wide-open,  and  terror  incarnate  sat 
there,  and  the  pupils  were  contracted  to  a  pin-point  as  if 
focussed  on  something  but  an  inch  or  two  from  him.  He 
was  not  dead,  for  his  chest  heaved  with  dreadful  spasms  of 
breathing,  and  Philip  took  him  up  and  carried  him  away 
from  that  haunted  place  into  the  house,  laying  him  on  a  rug 
in  the  passage. 

But  before  they  had  got  him  there  the  breathing  had 
ceased,  the  mouth  and  the  eyes  had  closed,  and  what  they 
looked  on  was  just  the  figure  of  a  boy  whose  mouth  smiled, 
and  who  was  sunk  in  happy,  dreamless  sleep. 

There  was  nothing  to  be  done.  Philip  knew  that,  but  he 
•sent  his  servant  off  at  once  to  fetch  a  doctor  from  Brocken- 
hurst,  while  he  waited  and  watched  by  Merivale  or  what 
had  been  he.  All  terror  and  shrinking  had  utterly  passed 
from  that  face,  and  Philip  himself,  in  spite  of  the  frightful, 
inexplicable  thing  that  had  happened,  was  not  frightened 
either,  but  sat  by  him,  feeling  curiously  calm  and  serene, 
hardly  conscious  even  of  sorrow  or  regret.  Nor  did  he 
fear  any  incomer  from  the  garden.  For  the  curtain  had 
been  drawn,  and  the  dead  man  had  felt  so  sure  that  whatever 
form  the  revelation  was  to  take,  it  would  be  God,  that  the 
assurance  of  his  belief  filled  and  quieted  the  man  who 
watched  by  him. 

His  shirt  was  open  at  the  neck,  as  Philip  had  seen  him  last, 
standing  below  the  lamp  on  the  verandah,  and  his  sleeves 
were  rolled  back  to  above  the  elbow.  And  as  Philip  looked, 
he  saw  slowly  appearing  on  the  skin  of  his  chest  and  the  sun- 
burnt arms  curious  marks,  which  became  gradually  clearer 
and  more  defined,  marks  pointed  at  one  end,  the  print  of 
some  animal's  hoofs,  as  if  a  monstrous  goat  had  leaped  and 
danced  on  him. 


It  was  a  week  later,  and  Philip  was  seated  alone  with  his 
mother  in  the  small  drawing-room  of  his  house  at  Pang- 
bourne  which  they  generally  used  if  there  was  no  one  with 
them.  He  had  arrived  home  only  just  before  dinner  that 
night,  and  when  it  was  over  he  had  talked  long  to  her,  de- 
scribing all  that  had  happened  during  his  stay  with  Merivale, 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  305 

all  that  had  culminated  in  that  night  of  terror  about  which 
even  now  he  could  hardly  speak.  The  story  had  been  a  long 
one,  sometimes  he  spoke  freely,  at  other  points  there  were 
silences,  for  the  words  would  not  come,  and  his  choking 
throat  and  trembling  lips  had  to  be  controlled  before  he  could 
find  utterance.  For  it  concerned  not  Merivale  only;  and, 
indeed,  friend  of  his  heart  as  he  had  been,  one  who  could 
never  be  replaced,  Philip  could  scarcely  think  of  his  death 
as  sad. 

"  For  though,"  he  said,  "  just  for  that  moment  when  he 
cried  on  God's  name  and  on  the  name  of  Christ,  when  that 
terror,  whatever  it  was,  came  close  to  him,  the  flesh  was 
weak,  yet  I  know  he  was  not  afraid.  He  had  told  me  so: 
his  spirit  was  not  afraid.  And  he  so  longed  to  see  the  curtain 
drawn." 

The  joy  of  getting  Philip  back  again,  the  joy,  too,  of 
knowing  that  that  black  crust  of  hate  and  despair  no  longer 
shut  him  off  from  her,  was  so  great,  that  Mrs.  Home  hardly 
regarded  the  anxiety  she  would  otherwise  have  felt.  For 
she  had  never  seen  Philip  like  this ;  what  had  happened  had 
stirred  him  to  the  depths  of  his  soul.  Even  the  sudden  and 
dreadful  death  of  so  old  a  friend  she  could  not  have  imag- 
ined would  have  affected  him  so. 

"  Philip,  dear,"  she  said,  "  you  are  terribly  excited  and 
overwrought.  Get  yourself  more  in  control,  my  darling." 

He  was  quiet  for  a  moment,  and  even  lit  a  cigarette,  but 
he  threw  it  away  again  immediately. 

"  Ah,  mother,  when  I  have  finished  you  will  see,"  he  said. 
"  Let  me  go  on." 

He  paused  a  moment,  and  the  soft  stroking  of  her  hand  on 
his  calmed  him. 

"  It  was  just  dawn  when  Flynn  came  back  with  the  doc- 
tor," he  said ;  "  a  clear,  dewy  dawn,  the  sort  of  dawn  Tom 
loved.  The  doctor  needed  but  one  glance,  one  touch.  Then 
he  said :  '  Yes,  he  has  been  dead  for  more  than  an  hour.'  So 
I  suppose  I  had  sat  there  as  long  as  that ;  I  did  not  think  it 
had  been  more  than  a  minute  or  two.  Then  his  eye  fell  on 
those  marks  and  bruises  I  told  you  of,  and  he  looked  at  them. 
He  undressed  him  a  little  further :  there  were  more  of  them. 
I  needn't  go  into  that,  but  you  know  what  the  surface  of  a 
lane  looks  like  when  a  flock  of  sheep  has  passed? — it  was 
like  that. 


306  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  All  this,  of  course,  came  out  at  the  inquest,  where  I  told 
all  I  knew,  and  Flynn  corroborated  it.  I  saw  also  what  Tom 
had  told  me  that  afternoon,  how  a  huge  goat  had  sparred  and 
gambolled  round  him  as  he  came  home  across  the  forest. 
And  the  verdict,  as  you  say,  perhaps,  was  brought  in  in  ac- 
cordance with  that.  The  world  will  be  quite  satisfied.  I  am 
satisfied,  too,  but  not  in  that  way." 

He  was  silent  again  a  moment,  and  then  went  on. 

"  It  all  hangs  together,"  he  said ;  "  the  dear  Hermit  was 
not  as  all  of  us  are :  he  could  talk  to  birds  and  beasts,  and 
the  very  peace  of  God  encompassed  him.  He  knew,  in  a  way 
we  don't,  that  all-embracing  fatherhood.  I  learned  slowly, 
these  weeks  I  was  with  him,  what  the  truth  of  that  was  to 
him.  And  he  used  often  to  speak,  as  you  know,  of  the  grim 
side  of  Nature,  of  the  cruelty  and  death,  which  he  had 
turned  his  face  from,  which  he  called  Pan,  who,  as  the  myths 
have  it,  appeared  in  form  like  a  goat,  to  see  whom  was  death. 
We  had  been  talking  of  it  that  night,  we  both  heard  curious 
tramplings  in  the  bushes,  and  the  pungent  smell  of  a  goat. 
Every  sensible  person,  considering,  too,  that  he  had  seen  a 
big  goat  that  afternoon,  would  come  to  the  conclusion  that, 
somehow  or  other  the  brute  had  found  its  way  into  the  gar- 
den, and  had  sprung  on  him  like  a  wild  beast,  and  trampled 
him.  Then,  too,  he  was  thinking  about  Pan ;  he  might  have 
imagined  when  the  goat  appeared,  that  this  was  what  he  in 
those  imaginings,  if  you  like,  which  were  as  real  to  him  as 
the  sun  and  moon,  believed  to  be  Pan,  and  that  he  died  of 
fright.  The  jury  took  the  view  that  some  wild  goat  was  the 
cause  of  his  death:  I  daresay  fifty  juries  would  have  done 
the  same.  But  if  you  ask  me  whether  I  believe  that  a  goat, 
a  flesh  and  blood  goat,  killed  him,  why  I  laugh  at  you.  For 
what  goat  was  that  ?  Who  saw  the  goat  except  the  Hermit  ?" 

He  paused  again,  and  looked  up  at  his  mother  with  sudden 
solicitude. 

"  Ah,  dear,  you  are  crying,"  he  said.    "  Shall  I  not  go  on  ?" 

Again  that  gentle,  loving  stroking  of  his  hand  began. 

"  Ah,  my  son,"  she  said. 

Philip  kissed  the  hand  that  stroked  his.  These  lines  were 
easy  to  read  between. 

But  if  he  had  more  to  tell  his  mother,  she  had  something 
also  to  tell  him  that  he  did  not  know  yet. 

"  You   see,   I   saw   such   strange  and  impossible   things 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  307 

there,"  he  went  on,  "  that  nothing  seems  strange  nor  impossi- 
ble. It  was  like  an  allegory :  Tom  himself  was  an  allegory. 
The  birds  came  to  his  bidding,  the  shy  creatures  of  the  forest 
were  his  friends.  It  was  no  miracle :  it  was  but  what  we  all 
could  do,  if  we  realised  what  he  realised,  and  knew  as  he 
knew  the  brotherhood  of  all  that  lives.  He  put  into  practice 
the  theory  of  Darwinism  that  no  one  in  theory  denies.  The 
living  things  were  his  brothers  and  his  cousins :  they  knew  it, 
too.  But  from  one  huge  fact,  the  fact  of  sorrow  and  pain, 
he  turned  aside,  and,  so  I  believe,  it  all  came  to  him  in  a 
flash,  making  him  perfect.  And  it  came  in  material  form,  at 
least  it  was  so  material  that  it  could  bruise  his  flesh.  It  seems 
cruel ;  but — oh,  mother,  if  you  had  seen  his  face  afterwards, 
you  would  have  known  that  the  hand  that  made  him  suffer 
comforted  him  when  he  had  learned  what  the  suffering  had 
to  teach  him.  It  could  have  been  done,  I  must  suppose,  irx 
no  other  way." 

Then  for  a  little  the  strong  man  was  very  weak,  and  he 
broke  down  and  wept.  But  one  who  weeps  while  eyes  so 
tender  watch,  weeps  tears  that  are  not  bitter,  or  at  least  are 
sweetened,  each  one,  as  it  falls.  Then  again  he  went  on: 
much  as  he  had  told,  there  was  all  to  tell  yet,  yet  that  all  was 
but  short — a  few  words  were  sufficient. 

"  And  so  my  lesson  came  home  to  me,"  he  said.  "  A  month 
ago  I  said,  as  you  know,  '  I  will  hate,  I  will  injure.'  A  fort- 
night ago  I  said,  '  What  good  is  that  ?'  But  now,  when  poor 
Tom,  who  was  all  kind  and  all  gentle,  had  to  be  taught  like 
that,  with  those  battering  hoofs,  that  pain  must  be  and  that 
one  must  accept  it  and  sorrow,  and  not  leave  them  out  of  life> 
now  I  say,  '  Can  I  help  ?  May  not  I  bear  a  little  of  it  ?'  " 

He  got  up. 

"  You  don't  know  me,"  he  said.  "  I  don't  know  myself. 
But  I  suppose  this  is  how  such  a  thing  comes  to  one.  I  have 
been  in  an  outer  darkness :  I  have  been  black  and  bitter  and 
all  my  life  before  that  I  was  hard.  That,  I  suppose,  was 
needful  for  me.  I  don't  think  I  am  going  to  be  a  prig,  but 
if  that  is  so,  perhaps  it  doesn't  much  matter.  But  I  do  know 
this,  that  I  am  sorry  for  poor  things." 

Mrs.  Home  said  nothing  for  the  moment ;  then  she  turned 
her  eyes  away  as  she  spoke. 

"  You  have  not  heard  then,  dear  ?"  she  said. 

"  I  have  heard  nothing." 


308  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  It  was  in  the  paper  this  evening,"  she  said.  "  I  know  no 
more  than  that.  Evelyn  was  shot  in  the  face  yesterday." 

Then  her  voice  quivered. 

"  They  think  he  will  live,"  she  said.  "  But  they  know  he 
will  be  blind.  Oh,  Philip,  think  of  Evelyn  blind !" 


TWENTIETH 


room  where  Madge  had  talked  with  her  mother 
on  the  evening  of  her  first  day  at  Glen  Callan  was 
darkened,  and  only  a  faint,  muffled  light  came  in. 
through  the  blinded  windows.  The  clean,  neat  ap- 
paratus of  nursing  was  there,  a  fire  burned  on  the  hearth,  by 
which  Madge  sat,  and  on  the  bed  lay  a  figure,  the  face  of 
which  was  swathed  in  bandages.  The  whole  of  the  upper 
part  of  it  was  thus  covered,  only  the  chin  and  mouth  ap- 
peared, and  round  the  mouth  was  the  three  days'  beard  of 
a  young  man. 

It  was  a  little  after  midday;  the  nurse  had  gone  to  her 
lunch,  and  had  told  Madge  to  ring  for  her  if  she  wanted  her. 
It  was  not  the  least  likely :  all  was  going  as  well  as  it  appar- 
ently could,  but  while  Evelyn  was  still  feverish  it  was  neces- 
sary to  be  on  the  guard  for  any  one  of  a  myriad  dangers  that 
might  threaten  him.  There  was  the  danger  of  bood-poison- 
ing;  there  were  the  after-effects  of  the  shock;  other  things 
also  were  possible.  Madge  had  not  inquired  into  it  all ;  she 
knew  only  what  it  was  right  for  her  to  know  if  she  was  in 
charge  of  the  sick-room  for  an  hour  or  two.  If  he  got  very 
restless,  if  he  came  to  himself — for  he  was  kept  drowsy  with 
drugs — and  complained  of  pain,  she  was  to  ring  the  bell. 
But  the  nurse  did  not  think  that  there  was  any  real  likelihood 
of  any  of  these  things  happening. 

They  had  carried  him  back  over  the  wire  bridge,  above 
which  the  accident  had  happened,  and  now  for  nearly  forty- 
eight  hours  he  had  lain  where  he  lay  now.  By  great  good 
luck  a  surgeon  of  eminent  skill  had  been  staying  in  a  house 
not  very  far  off,  and  he  had  come  over  at  once,  in  answer  to 
this  call,  and  done  what  had  to  be  done.  Madge  had  seen 
him  afterwards,  and  very  quietly,  as  Evelyn's  wife,  had  asked 
to  be  told,  frankly  and  fully,  what  had  been  necessary.  Sir 
Francis  Egmont,  whose  surgical  skill  was  only  equalled  by 
his  human  kindness,  had  told  her  all. 


310  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  He  won't  die,  my  dear  lady,"  he  had  said.  "  I  feel  sure 
of  that.  He  will  get  over  it,  and  live  to  be  strong  again. 
But — yes,  you  must  be  brave  about  it,  and  more  than  that, 
you  must  help  him  to  be  brave,  poor  fellow." 

This  happened  in  the  sitting-room  adjoining.  Sir  Francis 
took  a  turn  up  and  down  before  he  went  on.  Then  he  sat  in 
a  chair  just  opposite  Madge,  and  took  her  hands  in  his.  And 
his  grey  eyes  looked  at  her  from  under  the  eyebrows,  which 
were  grey  also. 

"  Yes,  you  have  got  to  make  him  brave,"  he  repeated, 
"  and  there  is  your  work  cut  out  for  you  in  the  world.  You 
are  young  and  strong,  and  your  youth  and  strength  have  got 
their  mission  now.  Don't  label  me  an  old  preacher;  old  I 
am,  but  I  don't  preach,  Mrs.  Dundas,  unless  I  am  sure  of  my 
audience.  And  I  am  sure  of  you.  Your  husband  will  get 
well.  But  his  face  will  be  terribly  disfigured.  That  must  be. 
That  could  not  be  helped.  And  there  is  another  thing.  He 
will  be  blind.  Yes,  yes,  take  the  truth  of  that  now,  for  it  is 
you  who  have  to  enable  him  to  bear  it.  Blind  !  Ah,  my  dear 
girl — I  call  you  that :  you  are  so  young,  and  I  am  so  sorry !" 


How  it  had  happened  hardly  interested  her.  They  had 
been  walking  in  line,  it  appeared,  on  the  steep  hill-side,  where 
she  had  seen  them  as  she  sat  on  the  top  of  the  cliff  above  the 
Bridge-pool.  Then  a  hare  had  got  up,  and  Lord  Ellington 
had  fired.  The  shot  struck  a  rock  not  far  in  front,  and  of 
the  whole  charge  some  ten  pellets  had  ricocheted  back  and 
hit  Evelyn  in  the  face-.  One  eye  was  destroyed,  the  other  was 
so  injured  that  it  had  been  found  impossible  to  save  it ;  other 
pellets  had  lodged  in  his  face.  All  this — the  manner  of  the 
accident — did  not  matter  to  Madge :  the  thing  had  happened, 
it  was  only  wonderful  that  he  was  alive. 

But  the  operation — what  it  was  Madge  did  not  inquire, 
for  it  would  do  no  good — had  satisfied  the  surgeon.  He 
could  not  have  expected  better  results,  he  would  not  have 
predicted  results  so  good.  With  the  unhesitating  obedience 
to  duty,  which  is  the  motto  and  watchword  of  his  profession, 
he  had  stopped  in  Lady  Dover's  house,  waiting  till  he  could 
without  misgiving  or  fear  of  after-results,  leave  the  case. 
All  yesterday  he  had  been  in  and  out  of  the  sick-room,  he  had 
slept  in  the  dressing-room  last  night,  and  had  only  left  an 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  311 

hour  or  two  before,  when  he  could  put  his  patient  into  the 
skilled  hands  of  the  nurse  who  had  come  from  Inverness. 
He  was  a  kind,  shy  man,  and  fumbled  dreadfully  in  his 
pockets  as  Lady  Dover  saw  him  off. 

"  You  will  do  me  a  great  service,  Lady  Dover,"  he  had 
said,  "  if  you  will  convey  somehow  to  Mrs.  Dundas  that  her 
debt  to  me,  whatever  it  is,  is  discharged.  Discharged  it  is; 
to  see  a  woman  being  brave  is  sufficient.  Besides,  I  am  on 
my  holiday:  I  could  not  think  of  taking  a  fee.  So  if  so 
absurd  a  notion  occurs  to  her — ah,  the  motor  is  ready,  I  see, 
but  if  so  absurd  a  thing  occurs — you,  my  dear  lady,  will 
please  exercise  your  tact,  you  will  let  her  be  under  no  obliga- 
tion, please.  A  Daimler  surely — beautiful  machines,  are  they 
not — yes,  just  a  little  tact — I  was  in  the  house  or  something 
— I  am  sure  you  will  manage  it — besides,  on  my  holiday. 
Yes,  good-bye,  good-bye.  I  think  I  have  told  the  nurse 
everything,  and  the  doctor  from  Inverness — dear  me,  his 
name  has  gone  again,  whom  I  am  very  pleased  to  have  met, 
is,  I  am  sure,  most  reliable.  God  bless  my  soul,  poor  Dundas, 
a  rising  painter  too;  well,  I'm  no  judge.  But  it  is  pitiful, 
isn't  it?  Of  course,  if  I  am  wanted  again,  I'll  step  over  at 
once :  Brora,  you  know,  it's  no  trouble  at  all.  And  the  poor 
fellow,  too,  who  caused  this  accident ;  I'm  sorry  for  him,  too 
— nobody's  fault.  But  tell  him  we'll  pull  Mr.  Dundas 
through — oh,  yes,  we'll  pull  him  through,  and  there's  Braill's 
system  and  all  afterwards.  A  brave  woman,  you  know,  Mrs. 
Dundas  is ;  does  one  good,  that  sort  of  woman.  Very  brave. 
She'll  need  to  be,  poor  thing,  too.  Good-bye,  good-bye." 

But  Evelyn  lay  still,  and  there  was  no  need  for  Madge  to 
ring  for  the  nurse.  Sometimes  he  shifted  his  head  from  side 
to  side,  and  occasionally  he  put  a  hand  up  to  the  bandage  that 
covered  his  face,  with  little  moans  and  sighs  below  his 
breath.  Madge  had  been  warned  to  be  on  the  alert  for  this, 
and  very  gently,  as  often  as  he  did  this,  she  would  take  the 
feeble,  wandering  fingers  in  hers  and  lay  his  arm  back  again 
on  the  blanket.  It  was  something  even  to  have  that  to  do, 
the  slightest,  most  trivial  act,  was  a  relief  from  absolute  in- 
action. Yet  all  the  time  she  dreaded  with  ever-increasing 
shrinking  of  the  heart  the  hour  when  she  should  have  to  act 
indeed,  when  her  husband  would  come  to,  and  begin  to  ask 
questions.  No  one  but  she,  she  was  determined,  should  an- 
swer them ;  it  was  she  who  would  tell  him  all  that  he  had  yet 


312  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

to  learn.  Would  it  kill  him,  she  wondered,  when  he  knew  ? 
Would  he  die  simply  because  life  was  no  longer  desirable  or 
possible  ?  Blind !  Madge  could  not  fully  grasp  that  herself 
yet,  but  she  felt  she  must  realise  it,  she  must  make  haste  to 
realise  it  before  she  was  called  upon  to  tell  him.  Lady  Dover, 
her  mother,  Sir  Francis,  had  all  urged  her  to  let  him  be  told 
by  someone  else;  but  Madge  would  not  hear  of  it;  some 
wifely  instinct  was  stronger  than  any  reason  that  could  be 
suggested. 

There  was  another  thing  which  she  shrank  from,  too, 
though  in  part  that  would  be  spared  Evelyn,  the  disfigure- 
ment about  which  Sir  Francis  had  spoken.  He  had  told  her 
it  would  be  terrible,  and  she  had  to  get  used  to  that  in  an- 
ticipation, so  that  when  she  saw  it,  she  should  not  shrink,  or 
let  Evelyn  guess.  He  would  not  be  able  to  see  it  himself; 
as  far  as  that  went,  it  was  merciful.  All  that  splendid  beauty, 
which  she  loved  so,  the  brightness  and  the  sunshine  of  his 
face,  she  would  never  see  again.  A  few  details  about  that  the 
surgeon  had  told  her;  it  was  horrible.  Her  love  for  him, 
her  love  for  his  beauty  were  inseparable ;  she  could  not  dis- 
entangle them,  the  latter  was  part  of  the  whole.  Yet  though 
she  knew  that  it  was  gone,  it  was  impossible  to  imagine  that 
the  whole  was  diminished,  though  a  part  of  it  was  with- 
drawn. But  she  had  been  warned  how  terrible  the  change 
would  be,  and  what  if  involuntarily,  without  power  of  con- 
trol, her  flesh  recoiled,  her  nerves  shrank  from  him?  Yet 
that  was  the  one  thing  that  must  not  be ;  all  that  she  could  do 
for  him  was  to  make  him  know  and  feel  that  in  every  way  the 
completeness  of  her  love  for  him  was  undiminished,  and  only 
that  pity,  the  broad,  sweet  shining  of  pity,  framed  it  as  with 
a  halo.  She  knew  that  this  was  true  essentially  and  funda- 
mentally, but  she  had  to  make  it  true  not  only  in  principle, 
but  in  the  conduct  of  the  little  trivial  deeds  of  life.  She  must 
act  up  to  it  always ;  his  closeness,  his  bodily  presence,  must 
not  be  one  whit  less  physically  dear  to  her. 

Blind !  Ah,  if  she  only  could  take  that  and  bear  it  for  him, 
how  vastly  easier  even  to  her  personally  than  that  it  should 
be  borne  by  him !  For  it  was  from  that,  from  the  exquisite 
pleasures  of  the  eye,  that  as  from  a  fountain  his  gaiety,  his 
joy  of  life,  chiefly  sprang.  Of  the  five  senses  that  one  was  to 
him  more  than  all  the  rest  put  together ;  of  the  five  chords 
that  bound  him  to  life  and  made  the  material  world  real  the 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  313 

strongest  had  been  severed,  and  the  others  in  comparison 
were  but  as  frayed  strings.  Any  other  loss  would  have  been 
trivial  compared  with  this,  and  how  doubly,  trebly  trivial 
would  the  same  loss  have  been  to  her.  But  that  it  should 
come  to  him !  How  could  he  bear  it  ? 

There  was  nothing  to  be  reasoned  about  in  all  this :  she  had 
but  to  let  thoughts  like  these  just  go  round  and  round  in  her 
head,  till  she  got  more  used  to  them.  Round  and  round  they 
went,  yet  at  each  recurrence  each  seemed  not  a  whit  less  un- 
endurable. She  tried  to  imagine  herself  telling  him ;  she  went 
even  over  forms  of  words,  choosing  the  speech  that  should 
tell  it  him  most  gently,  and  even  while  she  spoke  should  make 
him,  force  him,  to  feel  that  by  the  very  fact  of  her  love  the 
burden  and  the  misery  of  it  all  was  more  hers  to  bear  than 
his.  Yet  what  were  words,  this  mere  formula,  "  It  hurts  me 
more  than  you?"  That  did  not  make  it  hurt  him  less.  A 
pain  that  is  shared  by  another  is  not  diminished;  there  is 
double  the  pain  to  bear,  a  dreadful  automatic  multiplication 
of  it  alone  takes  place.  It  was  all  too  crushingly  recent  yet 
for  poor  Madge  to  refrain  from  such  a  conclusion ;  it  seemed 
to  her  as  yet  that  this  was  a  dark  place  into  which  the  light 
of  sympathy  could  not  penetrate.  She  herself  certainly  was 
at  present  beyond  its  range;  the  kindness,  the  deep  pity, 
which  all  felt  for  her  did  not  reach  her  yet. 

The  nurse  returned  from  her  dinner,  and  with  her  came 
the  Inverness  doctor,  a  kind,  rugged  man.  Bandages  had  to 
be  changed,  and  fresh  dressings  to  be  put  on,  and  Madge  left 
the  room  for  this,  for  she  had  been  told  that  if  she  saw 
his  face  now  she  would  be  needlessly  shocked.  When  the 
wounds  healed,  it  would  not  be  nearly  so  bad.  So,  though 
she  would  really  have  preferred  to  know  worse  than  the 
worst,  she  yielded  to  this. 

Madge  went  downstairs  while  this  was  going  on,  and 
found  Lady  Dover  waiting  in  the  hall.  The  rest  of  the  party 
had  all  left  yesterday,  and  though  Lady  Ellington  had  of- 
fered, and,  indeed,  really  wished  to  remain,  Madge  had 
persuaded  her  to  go ;  for  the  girl,  out  of  the  range  of  sym- 
pathy and  pity  at  present,  found  the  consolation  that  Lady 
Ellington  tried  to  administer  like  a  series  of  sharp  raps  on  a 
sore  place.  Also  Madge  could  not  help  reading  into  it  a  sort 
of  tacit  reproach  for  her  having  married  him.  The  accident, 
indeed,  seemed  to  have  stained  backwards  in  Lady  Elling- 


314  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

ton's  mind,  and  to  have  re-endowed  the  marriage  itself  with 
disaster. 

But  Lady  Dover's  touch  was  very  different  to  her 
mother's ;  indeed  it  was  because  it  did  not  seem  to  be  a 
"  touch  "  at  all  that  Madge  unconsciously  answered  to  it. 

"  Ah,  there  you  are,  dear,"  she  said ;  "  I  was  expecting 
you.  Will  you  not  get  on  your  hat,  and  come  out  for  a  little  ? 
It  will  do  you  good  to  get  the  air,  and  it  is  a  lovely  afternoon. 
I  have  never  seen  the  lights  and  shadows  more  exquisite." 

It  was  this  that  poor  Madge  wanted,  though  she  did  not 
know  she  wanted  it,  just  the  cool  spring  water,  the  whole- 
some white  bread  of  a  kind,  natural  woman.  Sympathy  was 
no  good  to  her  yet,  consolation  could  not  touch  her,  but  just 
the  quiet,  patient  kindness  was  bearable,  it  made  the  moment 
bearable  from  its  very  restfulness ;  the  lights  and  the  shadows 
were  still  there,  Lady  Dover  still  talked  of  them,  and  though 
she  did  not  know  it,  it  was  this  very  fact  that  other  lives  went 
on  as  usual  that  secretly  brought  a  certain  comfort  to  Madge. 

"  Yes,  I  will  come  out,"  she  said ;  "  but  I  don't  want  a  hat. 
I  cannot  go  far,  though." 

"  No,  we  will  just  take  a  turn  or  two  up  and  down  the 
terrace.  We  get  the  sun  there,  and  it  is  sheltered  from  the 
wind,  which  is  rather  cold  to-day." 

Simple  and  unsophisticated  as  the  spell  was,  if  spell  indeed 
there  was,  it  worked  magically  on  the  poor  girl,  and  for  a 
little  while  that  dreadful  round  of  the  impossible  images 
which  formed  the  panorama  of  her  future  ceased  to  turn  in 
her  head.  Had  Lady  Dover's  tone  suggested  sympathy,  or, 
which  would  have  been  worse,  spoken  of  the  healing  power 
of  time,  Madge  could  not  have  spoken.  But  now,  when  that 
incessant  procession  of  the  unthinkable  future  was  stayed, 
she  could  focus  her  mind  for  a  little  on  a  practical  question 
which  must  soon  arise,  and  on  which  she  wanted  advice. 

"  I  want  your  counsel,"  she  said.  "  They  are  going  to  give 
Evelyn,  the  doctor  told  me,  no  more  drugs,  and  by  this  even- 
ing he  will  be  himself  again,  fully  conscious.  Now,  unless 
I  deceive  him,  unless  I  tell  him  that  he  is  being  kept  for  the 
present  in  absolute  darkness,  he  must  find  out  that — that  he 
is  blind.  Soon,  anyhow,  he  must  know  it.  Is  it  any  use,  do 
you  think,  putting  it  off  ?" 

Lady  Dover  did  not,  as  Madge's  mother  would  certainly 
have  done,  squeeze  her  hand  and  utter  words  of  sympathy. 


THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN  315 

She  did  not  even  look  at  Madge,  but  with  those  clear,  level 
eyes  looked  straight  in  front  of  her  while  she  considered  this. 
Her  first  instinct  was,  as  would  have  been  the  instinct  of 
everyone,  to  say  something  sympathetic,  but  her  wisdom — 
the  existence  of  which  Lady  Ellington  really  did  not  believe 
in — gave  her  better  counsel.  For  to  be  natural  is  not  synon- 
ymous with  doing  the  first  thing  that  happens  to  come  into 
one's  head. 

"  That  must  be  partly  for  Dr.  Inglis  to  decide,"  she  said ; 
"  but  if  he  sanctions  it,  I  should  certainly  say  that  you  had 
better  tell  him  at  once.  I  think  people  get  used  to  things 
better  and  more  gradually  while  they  are  still  weak  and 
perhaps  suffering,  though  Dr.  Inglis  said  he  thought  he 
would  have  no  pain,  whereas  the  same  thing  is  a  greater 
shock  if  one  is  well;  it  hits  harder  then.  He  perhaps  will 
half-guess  for  himself,  too ;  all  that  would  torture  him.  To 
know  the  worst,  I  think,  is  not  so  bad  as  to  fear  the  worst." 

They  had  reached  the  end  of  the  terrace  and  looked  out 
over  the  river  a  couple  of  hundred  feet  below.  Just  opposite 
them  was  the  Bridge-pool,  beyond  which  rose  the  steep 
moorland.  Ever  since  it  had  happened,  Madge  had  given  no 
outward  sign  of  her  helpless,  devouring  anguish ;  she  had 
been  perfectly  composed ;  there  had  been  no  tears,  no  raving 
cries.  But  now  she  turned  quickly  away. 

"  I  can't  bear  to  look  at  it,"  she  said.  "  There  was  a  piece 
of  white  heather,  too,  where  he  fell." 

Lady  Dover's  sweet,  rather  Quakerish  face  did  not  change 
at  all,  her  quiet  wisdom  still  held  sway. 

"  We  are  wrong,  I  think,"  she  said,  "  to  associate  material 
things  with  great  grief.  One  cannot  always  wholly  help  it, 
but  I  think  one  should  try  to  discourage  it  in  oneself.  I  re- 
member so  well  walking  on  this  terrace,  Madge,  just  after 
my  mother  died.  It  was  a  day  rather  like  this ;  there  were 
the  same  exquisite  lights  on  the  hills.  And  I  remember  I 
tried  consciously  to  dissociate  them  from  my  own  grief.  I 
think  it  was  wise.  I  would  do  it  again,  at  least,  which,  in 
one's  own  case,  comes  to  the  same  thing." 

She  paused  a  moment ;  there  was  one  thing  she  wanted  to 
say,  and  she  believed  it  might  do  Madge  good  to  have  it  said. 
Deep  and  overwhelming  as  her  grief  was,  Lady  Dover  knew 
well  that  anything  that  took  her  mind  off  herself  was  salu- 
tary. 


316  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

"  But  sometimes,  on  the  other  hand,"  she  went  on,  "  we 
ought  to  remember  those  people  who  have  been  most  asso- 
ciated with  it.  It  does  not  do  any  good  to  anyone  to  shudder 
at  the  heather.  But  I  think,  dear,  it  would  be  kind  if  you 
just  wrote  a  line  to  Lord  Ellington.  I  think  you  have  for- 
gotten him,  and  what  he  must  feel." 

For  the  moment  she  doubted  if  she  had  done  wisely,  so 
bitter  was  Madge's  reply. 

"  Ah,  I  can  never  forgive  him !"  she  cried.  "  To  think  that 
but  for  him "  And  she  broke  off  with  quivering  lip. 

Lady  Dover  did  not  reply  at  once,  but  the  doubt  did  not 
gain  ground. 

"  I  think,  dear,  that  that  is  better  unsaid,"  she  replied  at 
length.  "  You  do  not  really  mean  it  either ;  your  best  self 
does  not  mean  it." 

Again  she  paused,  for  she  did  not  think  very  quickly. 

"  And  this,  too,"  she  said,  "  you  must  consider.  How  can 
you  help  Mr.  Dundas  not  to  feel  bitter  and  resentful,  for  he 
has  more  direct  cause  to  feel  it  than  you,  if  you  have  that 
sort  of  thought  in  your  heart?  You  will  be  unable  to  help 
him,  in  the  one  way  in  which  you  perhaps  can,  if  you  feel 
like  that.  Also,  dear,  supposing  any  one  of  us,  Dover,  I, 
Mr.  Osborne,  had  to  become  either  Mr.  Dundas  or  Lord 
Ellington,  do  you  think  any  of  us  could  hesitate  a  moment? 
Do  you  not  see  that  of  all  the  people  who  have  been  made 
miserable  by  this  terrible  accident,  which  of  them  must  be 
the  most  miserable?" 

Then  came  the  second  outward  sign  from  Madge.  She 
took  Lady  Dover's  hand  in  both  of  hers. 

"  Don't  judge  me  too  hardly,"  she  said.  "  I  spoke  very 
hastily,  very  wrongly.  I  have  been  thinking  of  my  own 
misery  too  much;  I  have  not  thought  enough  about  poor 
Evelyn.  But  I  did  not  know  there  was  such  sorrow  in  the 
world. 

Lady  Dover  looked  at  her  a  moment,  and  drew  her  gently 
to  a  seat  behind  some  bushes.  And  her  own  pretty,  neat  face 
was  suddenly  puckered  up. 

"  Oh,  Madge,"  she  said,  "  just  let  yourself  go  for  ten  min- 
utes, and  cry,  my  dear,  sob  your  heart  out,  as  they  say.  Have 
a  good  cry,  dear ;  it  will  do  you  good.  It  is  not  cowardly,  that 
— it  helps  one,  it  softens  one,  and  it  makes  one  braver  per- 
haps afterwards.  Yes,  dear,  let  it  come." 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  317 

And  then  the  fountain  of  tears  was  unloosed,  and  those 
sobs,  those  deep  sobs  which  come  from  the  heart  of  living 
and  suffering  men  and  women,  and  are  a  sign  and  a  proof, 
as  it  were,  of  their  humanity,  poured  out.  Madge  had  sur- 
rendered, she  had  ceased  to  hold  herself  aioof ;  brave  she  had 
been  before,  but  brave  in  a  sort  of  impenetrable  armour  of 
her  own  reserve.  But  now  she  cast  it  aside,  and  the  woman- 
hood which  her  love  for  Evelyn  had  begun  to  wake  in  her, 
came  to  itself  and  its  own,  more  heroic  than  it  had  been 
before,  because  the  armour  was  cast  aside,  and  she  stood 
defenceless,  but  fearless. 

Before  she  went  up  again  to  Evelyn's  room  she  wrote : 

MY  DEAR  ELLINGTON, 

I  had  no  opportunity  of  speaking  to  you 


Then  her  pen  paused ;  that  was  not  quite  honest,  and  she 
began  again : 

I  ought  to  have  just  seen  you  before  you  went  yesterday, 
and  I  must  ask  your  pardon  that  I  did  not.  I  just  want  to 
say  this,  that  I  am  more  sorry  for  you  than  I  can  possibly 
tell  you,  and  I  ask  you  to  say  to  yourself,  and  to  keep  on  say- 
ing to  yourself,  that  it  was  in  no  way  your  fault.  Also  per- 
haps you  may  like  to  know  how  entirely  I  recognise  that,  and 
so,  I  know,  will  he. 

You  will  wish,  of  course,  to  hear  about  him.  He  is  going 
on  very  well,  though  up  to  now  they  have  kept  him  under 
morphia.  He  will  be  quite  blind,  though.  We  must  all 
try  to  make  that  affliction  as  light  as  possible  for  him.  And 
I  want  so  much  to  make  you  promise  not  to  blame  yourself. 
Please  don't ;  there  is  no  blame.  It  was  outside  the  control 
of  any  of  us. 

I  will  write  again  and  tell  you  how  he  gets  on. — Your 
affectionate  cousin,  MADGE  DUNDAS. 

Evelyn's  room  looked  out  on  to  the  terrace,  away  from  the 
direction  of  the  wind,  and  the  nurse  had  just  gone  to  the 
window  to  open  it  further,  for  the  room,  warmed  by  the 
afternoon  sun,  was  growing  rather  hot.  But  just  then  he 
stirred  with  a  more  direct  and  conscious  movement  than  he 


318  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

had  yet  made,  half-sat  up  in  bed,  and  with  both  hands  sud- 
denly felt  at  the  bandages  that  swathed  the  upper  part  of  his 
face.  Then  he  spoke  in  those  quick,  staccato  tones  that  were 
so  characteristic. 

"  What  has  happened  ?"  he  said.  "  Where  am  I  ?  What's 

going  on?  Why  can't  I  see?  Madge "  And  then  he 

stopped  suddenly. 

She  bit  her  lip  for  a  moment,  and  just  paused,  summon- 
ing up  her  strength  to  bear  what  she  knew  was  coming. 
Then  she  went  quickly  to  the  bedside  and  took  his  hand 
away  from  his  face. 

"  Yes,  dearest,  I  am  here,"  she  said.  "  Lie  quiet,  won't 
you,  and  we  will  talk." 

The  nurse  had  come  back  from  the  window,  and  also  stood 
by  the  bed.  Madge  spoke  to  her  quickly  and  low. 

"  Leave  us,  please,  nurse,"  she  said.  "  We  have  got  to 
talk  privately.  I  will  call  you  if  I  want  you." 

She  left  the  room;  Evelyn  had  instinctively  answered  to 
Madge's  voice,  and  had  sunk  back  again  on  his  pillows,  and 
slowly  in  the  long  silence  that  followed,  his  mind  began 
piecing  things  together,  burrowing,  groping,  feeling  for  the 
tilings  that  had  made  their  mark  on  his  brain,  but  were 
remembered  at  present  only  dimly.  The  remembrance  of 
some  shock  came  first  to  him,  and  some  sudden,  stinging 
pain;  next  the  smell  of  heather,  warm  and  fragrant,  and 
another  bitter-tasting  smell,  the  smell  of  blood.  He  put  out 
his  hand,  and  felt  fumblingly  over  the  clothes. 

"  Madge,  are  you  still  there  ?"  he  said  quickly. 

She  took  his  hand. 

"  Yes,  dear,  sitting  by  you,"  she  said.  "  I  shall  always 
be  here  whenever  you  want  me." 

Then  came  the  staccato  voice  again. 

"  But  why  can't  I  see  you  ?"  he  asked.  "  What's  this  over 
my  face?" 

Again  she  gently  pulled  back  his  other  hand,  which  was 
feeling  the  bandages  with  quick,  hovering  movements  like 
the  antennae  of  some  insect. 

"  You  were  hurt,  dear,  you  know,"  she  said.  "  They  had 
to  bandage  your  face,  over  your  forehead  and  your  eyes." 

Again  there  was  silence ;  his  mind  was  beginning  to  move 
more  quickly,  remembrance  was  pouring  in  from  all  sides. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  319 

"  It  was  at  Glen — Glen  something,  where  we  came  by  a 
night  train,  and  you  flirted  with  a  valet,"  he  said. 

"  Yes,  dear,  Glen  Callan,"  said  Madge  quietly.  But  her 
eyes  yearned  and  devoured  him:  all  her  heart  was  ready 
now,  when  the  time  came,  to  spring  towards  him,  enfolding 
him  with  love. 

But  his  voice  was  fretful  rather  and  irritable,  from  shock 
and  suffering. 

"  Yes,  Glen  Callan,  of  course,"  he  said.  "  I  said  Glen 
Callan,  didn't  I  ?  We  are  there,  still,  I  suppose.  Yes  ?  And 
you  went  fishing  in  the  morning,  and  I  went  shooting. 
Shooting?"  he  repeated. 

All  that  Madge  had  ever  felt  before  in  her  life  grew  dim 
in  the  intensity  of  this.  The  moment  was  close  now,  but 
somehow  she  no  longer  feared  it.  Fear  could  not  live  in 
these  high  altitudes:  it  died  like  some  fever-germ. 

"  Yes,  dear,  you  went  shooting,"  she  said.  "  We  were  to 
meet  at  lunch,  you  know.  But  just  before  lunch  there  was 
an  accident.  You  were  shot,  shot  in  the  face." 

His  hands  grew  restless  again,  and  he  shifted  backwards 
and  forwards  in  bed. 

"  Ah,  yes,"  he  said,  "  that  is  just  what  I  could  not  remem- 
ber. I  was  shot — yes,  yes:  I  remember  how  it  stung,  but 
it  didn't  hurt  very  much.  Then  I  fell  down  in  the  heather: 
I  can't  think  why,  but  I  stumbled — I  couldn't  see.  I  was 
bleeding,  too;  the  heather  was  warm  and  sweet-smelling, 
but  there  was  blood,  too,  that  tasted  so  horrible — like — like 
blood,  there  is  nothing — all  over  my  face.  And  then — well, 
what  then  ?" 

"  We  brought  you  back,  dear,"  said  she,  "  and  you  had 
an  operation.  They  had  to  extract  the  shot.  It  was  all  done 
very  satisfactorily :  you  are  going  on  very  well." 

Then  all  the  nervous  trembling  in  Evelyn's  hands  and  the 
quick  twitching  of  his  body  ceased,  and  he  lay  quite  still  a 
moment,  gathering  himself  together  to  hear. 

"  Madge,"  he  said,  speaking  more  slowly,  "  will  you  please 
tell  me  all  ?  I  don't  think  you  have  told  me  all  yet.  I  want 
to  hear  it,  for  I  feel  there  is  more  yet.  I  was  shot:  that  is 
all  I  know,  and  am  lying  here  with  a  bandaged  face.  Well  ?'* 

Madge's  voice  did  not  falter;  that  love  and  pity  which 
possessed  her  had  for  this  moment  anyhow  complete  mastery 
over  the  frailness  and  cowardice  of  the  mere  flesh.  She 


320  THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

just  took  hold  of  both  his  hands,  clasping  them  tightly  in 
her's,  and  spoke. 

"  You  were  shot  all  over  the  upper  part  of  your  face," 
she  said.  "  You " 

But  he  interrupted  her. 

"  Who  shot  me?"  he  asked, 

"  Guy  Ellington,"  she  said.  "  The  shot  ricocheted  off  a 
rock  and  hit  you.  It  was  not  his  fault." 

"  By  Gad,  poor  devil !"  said  Evelyn. 

"Yes,  dear;  I  wrote  to  him  just  now,  saying  just  that, 
how  sorry  I  was  for  him  and  how  sorry  you  would  be  when 
you  knew.  You — you  were  shot  very  badly,  dear  Evelyn. 
You  were  shot  in  the  eyes,  in  both  eyes " 

Again  there  was  silence.    Then  he  spoke  hoarsely : 

"  Do  you  mean  that,  all  that  ?"  he  said. 

"  Yes,  dear ;  all  that.  And  I  had  better  say  it.  You  are 
blind,  Evelyn." 

Then  deep  down  from  the  very  heart  of  her  came  the 
next  words  which  spoke  themselves. 

"  I  wish  I  could  have  died  instead,"  she  said. 

He  lay  long  absolutely  motionless;  there  was  no  quiver 
of  any  kind  on  the  corners  of  his  mouth  to  show  that  he  even 
understood.  But  she  knew  he  understood,  it  was  because 
he  understood  that  he  lay  like  that. 

At  last  he  spoke  again,  and  the  sorrow  and  anguish  in  his 
voice  was  still  comfort  to  her  beyond  all  price. 

"  So  I  shall  never  see  you  again,"  he  said. 

Then  she  bent  over  the  bed,  and  kissed  him  on  the  month. 

"  But  never  have  I  been  so  utterly  yours  as  I  am  now !" 
she  said,  her  voice  still  strong  and  unwavering.  "  And,  oh, 
how  it  fed  my  heart  to  know  what  your  first  thought  was, 
my  darling.  I  think  it  would  have  broken  if  it  had  been 
anything  else !" 


TWENTY-FIRST 


"FTER  dinner  that  night,  before  she  went  to  bed, 
Madge  looked  into  Evelyn's  room  several  times 
and  spoke  to  him  gently.  But  on  all'  these  occa- 
sions he  was  lying  quite  still  and  he  did  not  answer 
her ;  so,  thinking  he  was  asleep,  she  eventually  retired  to  her 
own  room  just  opposite,  and  went  to  bed.  For  the  last  two 
nights  she  had  scarcely  closed  her  eyes,  but  now,  with  the 
intense  relief  of  knowing  that  Evelyn  knew,  of  feeling,  too, 
that  he  was  bearing  it  with  such  wonderful  quietness  and 
composure,  she  fell  asleep  at  once  and  slept  long  and  well. 

But  her  husband  had  not  been  asleep  any  of  those  times 
that  she  went  into  the  room.  He  had  never  felt  more  awake 
in  his  life.  But  he  had  not  answered  her,  because  he  had 
felt  that  he  must  be  alone:  just  now  nobody,  not  even  she, 
could  come  near  to  him,  for  he  had  to  go  into  the  secret 
place  of  his  soul,  where  only  he  himself  might  come.  And 
as  at  the  moment  of  death  not  even  a  man's  nearest  and 
dearest,  she  with  whom  he  has  been  one  flesh,  may  take  a 
single  step  with  the  soul  on  its  passage,  but  it  has  to  go  abso- 
lutely alone,  so  now  none  could  go  with  Evelyn ;  for  in  these 
hours  he  had  to  die  to  practically  all,  Madge  alone  excepted, 
which  the  word  "  life  "  connoted  to  him.  And  having  done 
that,  he  had  to  begin,  to  start  living  again.  There  Madge 
could  help  him,  but  for  this  death,  this  realisation  of  what 
had  happened,  this  summing  up  of  all  that  had  been  cut  off, 
he  had  to  be  alone. 

There  was  no  comfort  for  him  anywhere.:  nor  at  any 
future  time  could  comfort  come.  There  would  be  no 
"  getting  used  "  to  it,  every  moment,  every  hour,  that  passed 
would  but  put  another  spadeful  of  earth  on  his  coffin.  There 
was  no  more  night  and  morning  for  him.  Sunset  and  sun- 
rise spilt  like  crimson  flames  along  the  sky  existed  no  more : 
the  green  light  below  forest  trees  was  dead,  the  clusters  of 
purple  clematis  in  his  unfinished  picture  had  grown  black, 

321 


322  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

there  was  neither  green  nor  red  nor  any  colour  left,  it  was 
all  black.  The  forms  of  everything  had  gone,  too;  it  was 
as  if  the  world  had  been  some  exquisite  piece  of  modelling 
clay,  and  that  some  gigantic  hand  had  closed  on  it,  reducing 
it  to  a  shapeless  lump :  neither  shape  nor  colour  existed  any 
more.  People  had  gone,  too,  faces  and  eyes  and  limbs,  the 
gentle  swelling  of  a  woman's  breast,  outline  and  profile  and 
the  warm,  radiant  tint  of  youth  were  gone,  there  was 
nothing  left  except  voices.  And  voices  without  the  sight  of 
the  mouth  that  spoke,  of  the  shades  of  expression  playing 
over  the  face,  would  be  without  significance :  they  would  be 
dim  and  meaningless,  they  would  not  reach  him  in  this 
desert  of  utter  loneliness,  where  he  would  dwell  forever 
out  of  sight  of  everything.  And  that  was  not  all ;  that  was 
not  half.  Of  the  world  there  was  nothing  left  but  voices, 
and  of  him  what  was  left?  Was  he  only  a  voice,  too? 

He  was  blind,  that  is  to  say,  his  eyes  must  have  been 
practically  destroyed.  And  the  bandages  extended,  so  he 
could  feel,  right  up  to  his  hair,  and  down  to  his  upper  lip. 
There  were  other  injuries  as  well,  then.  What  were  they? 
How  complete  was  the  wreck?  Above  all,  did  Madge  know, 
had  she  seen?  If  ever  love  had  vibrated  in  a  voice,  it  had 
in  her's,  but  did  she  know,  or  had  she  only  seen  these 
bandages  ? 

With  his  frightfully  sensitive  artistic  nature,  this  seemed 
to  cut  deeper  than  anything,  this  thought  that  he  was  dis- 
figured ;  horrible  to  look  on,  an  offence  to  the  eye  of  day  and 
to  the  light  of  the  sun,  and — to  the  sight  of  her  he  loved. 
He  would  be  pitied,  too ;  and  even  as  man  and  woman  turned 
away  from  the  sight  of  him  they  would  be  sorry  for  him, 
and  the  thought  of  pity  was  like  a  file  on  his  flesh.  Would 
it  not  have  been  better  if  the  shot  had  gone  a  little  deeper 
yet?  His  maimed,  disfigured  body  would  then  have  been 
decently  hidden  away  and  covered  by  the  kind,  cool  earth, 
he  would  not  have  to  walk  the  earth  to  be  stared  at — to  be 
turned  from. 

His  nurse  not  long  before  had  made  her  last  visit  for  the 
night,  and,  seeing  him  lying  so  still  supposed,  like  Madge, 
that  he  was  asleep,  and  had  gone  back  to  the  dressing-room 
next  door,  to  go  to  bed  herself.  His  progress  during  the 
day  had  been  most  satisfactory,  the  feverishness  had  almost 
gone,  and  the  doctor,  when  the  wounds  were  dressed  that 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  323 

afternoon,  had  been  amazed  to  see  how  rapidly  and  well 
the  processes  of  healing  were  going  on.  Certainly  there  was 
no  lack  of  vitality  or  recuperative  power  in  his  patient,  nor 
in  the  keenness  and  utter  despair  of  his  mental  suffering- 
was  vitality  absent.  That  same  vitality  coloured  and  suffused 
that ;  he  saw  it  all  with  the  hideous  vividness  of  an  imagina- 
tive nature.  Doubt  and  uncertainty,  however,  here  were 
worse  than  the  worst  that  the  truth  could  hold  for  him,  and 
he  called  to  the  nurse,  who  came  at  once. 

"  What  is  it,  Mr.  Dundas  ?"  she  asked.  "  I  hoped  you 
were  asleep.  You  are  not  in  pain?" 

"  No,  not  in  pain.  But  I  can't  sleep.  I  want  to  ask  you 
two  or  three  questions.  Pray  answer  them:  I  sha'n't  sleep 
till  you  do." 

She  did  not  speak,  half-guessing  what  was  coming. 

"  I  want  to  know  this,  first  of  all,"  he  said,  speaking  quite 
quietly.  "  What  shall  I  look  like  when  these  things  are 
healed,  when  the  bandages  come  off  ?" 

Nurse  James  was  essentially  a  truthful  woman,  but  she 
did  not  hesitate  about  her  reply.  There  are  times  when  no 
decent  person  would  hesitate  about  telling  a  lie,  the  bigger 
the  better.  She  laughed. 

"  Well,  I  never !"  she  said.  "  And  have  you  brought  me 
from  my  bed  just  to  ask  that !  I  never  heard  such  a  thing. 
Why,  you  will  look  as  you  always  have  looked,  Mr.  Dundas, 
but  your  eyelids  will  be  shut." 

The  good,  kind  woman  suddenly  felt  that  the  ease  with 
which  all  this  came  to  her  was  almost  appalling.  She  was  a 
glorious  liar,  and  had  never  known  it  till  now. 

"  Why,  bless  you,"  she  went  on,  "  your  wife  was  in  here 
when  your  face  was  dressed  to-day,  and — you  were  still 
under  morphia,  you  know,  and  did  not  know  she  was  there — 
and  she  said  to  Dr.  Inglis :  '  Why,  he  only  looks  as  if  he  was 
asleep.' " 

"  She  has  seen  me,  then?"  asked  Evelyn  eagerly.  "  She 
has  seen  my  face  ?" 

"  Why,  of  course,  and  she  bent  and  kissed  it,  just  as  your 
wife  should  do.  There's  a  brave  woman  now.  Is  that  all, 
sir?" 

Evelyn  gave  one  great  sigh  of  relief. 

"  Yes,  nurse,"  he  said.  "  I  am  sorry  I  disturbed  you.  Yet 
I  assure  you  it  was  worth  while.  I  can't  tell  you  how  you 


324  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

have  relieved  me.  I  thought — oh,  my  God!  it  is  not  hell 
after  all." 

She  arranged  the  bedclothes  about  him,  and  though  she 
had  been  so  glib,  she  could  not  now  speak  at  once. 

"  There,  then ;  you'll  go  to  sleep,  won't  you,  now  you 
know  that,"  she  said.  "  But  to  think  of  you  worrying  here 
all  these  hours !" 

Madge  was,  of  course,  told  by  Nurse  James  what  hap- 
pened before  she  saw  Evelyn  again,  for  that  diplomatist 
came  to  her  room  very  early  next  morning,  and  informed  her 
of  it  all.  She  acquiesced  in  it,  as  she  would  have  acquiesced 
in  anything  that  in  the  opinion  of  nurse  or  doctor  conduced 
to  his  recovery,  and  for  the  next  day  or  two  his  progress  was 
speedy  and  uninterrupted.  He  had  faced  the  first  shock,  that 
he  was  blind,  with  a  courage  that  was  really  heroic,  and  ex- 
cept for  that  hour  when  he  held  himself  in  front  of  it,  pur- 
posing and  meaning  to  realise  once  and  for  all  exactly  what 
it  implied,  he  exercised  wonderful  self-control  in  not  letting 
himself  brood  over  it.  This  was  the  easier  because  that  sec- 
ond fear,  the  roots  of  which  went  so  much  deeper  than  the 
other,  had  proved  to  be  groundless.  Terrible  as  was  his 
plight,  the  knowledge  that  it  might  have  been  so  much  more 
terrible  was  ever  in  his  mind,  casting  its  light  into  the  places 
that  he  had  thought  were  of  an  impenetrable  darkness. 

But  in  this  balance  and  adjustment  of  the  human  soul  to 
the  anguish  with  which  circumstance  and  fate  visit  it,  the 
meehanism  of  its  infliction  is  wonderfully  contrived,  so  that 
it  shall  not  snap  under  the  strain.  The  Angel  of  Pain,  we 
must  suppose,  sits  by,  with  the  screws  and  levers  of  the  rack 
under  its  control;  it  loosens  one,  as  Evelyn's  dread  about 
disfigurement  had  been  loosened  for  the  present  at  any  rate, 
since  it  was,  perhaps,  more  than  he  could  stand  (and  the 
Angel  of  Pain,  with  the  relentless  hands  but  the  tender  eye 
and  pitying  mouth,  had  not  finished  with  him  yet)  but  it 
tightens  another ;  the  fact  of  his  blindness  had  been  screwed 
down  very  tight.  Then  as  the  racked  sinews  and  tortured 
nerves  began  to  writhe  and  agonise  less,  another  little  tor- 
ture was  added.  It  was  but  a  small  thing  compared  to  the 
others,  and  though  it  had  been  there  all  the  time,  neither 
Madge  nor  he  had  noticed  it  at  first.  But  now  when  he  was 
weary  with  pain,  it  was  like  a  fly  that  kept  buzzing  and  set- 
tling on  his  face,  while  his  hands  were  bound,  so  that  he 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  325 

could  not  brush  it  off.  It  had  seemed  but  fear  of  the  imagi- 
nation at  first,  but  gradually  to  both  of  them,  as  he  recovered 
so  well,  and  the  future  as  well  as  the  present  began  to  make 
itself  felt  again,  it  became  terribly  real.  It  was  simply  this : 
What  was  to  happen  to  them?  How  among  other  things 
were  their  doctor's  and  nurse's  bills  to  be  paid?  And  how, 
after  that,  were  they  going  to  live  ? 

For  several  days  each  suffered  the  buzzing,  flirtings  and 
alightings  of  this  without  speaking  of  it  to  the  other,  since 
each  believed  that  the  other  had  not  yet  thought  of  it.  But 
one  afternoon  they  had  been  talking  of  that  hot  August 
month  in  London,  with  their  childish  tales  of  Ellesdee,  and 
the  curious  fact  that  if  you  only  make  a  game  out  of  a  priva- 
tion, the  privation  ceases  and  the  game  becomes  entrancingly 
real.  Evelyn  had  laughed  over  this. 

"  We  shall  have  heaps  of  games  in  the  future,"  he  had  said 
unthinkingly,  and  stopped  rather  abruptly.  In  the  silence  that 
followed  he  heard  Madge  just  stir  in  her  chair;  an  assent 
had  dropped  from  her  lips,  but  she  had  said  no  more,  and  it 
was  clear  to  them  both  that  their  thoughts  had  met.  Then 
Evelyn  spoke. 

"  Madge,  has  it  ever  occurred  to  you  what  we  are  going  to 
do  ?"  he  said.  "  How  we  are  going  to  live,  I  mean  ?" 

"  Yes,  dear,  I  have  thought  about  it  a  good  deal.  I  didn't 
speak  of  it,  since  I  hoped  you  wouldn't  begin  to  think  about 
it  yet." 

"  There  were  forty-three  pounds  ?"  he  said ;  "  from  which 
you  have  to  subtract  our  railway  fares." 

"  Yes,  dear,"  she  said  almost  inaudibly. 

The  Angel  of  Pain  turned  that  screw  a  little  more.  They 
could  bear  a  little  more  of  that. 

"  There  is  an  unfinished  portrait  of  Lady  Tavener,"  said 
he.  "  There  is  the  finished  portrait  of  you.  But  even  if  we 
sold  those,  what  next,  what  afterwards  ?" 

"  Ah,  there  is  no  necessity  to  think  about  it,"  said  Madge 
quickly.  "  Of  course  mother  will  help  us.  She  will  do  what 
she  can.  And  Guy  Ellington,  of  course " 

"  We  shall  have  to  live  on  their  alms,  you  mean  ?"  said  he 
with  a  sudden  dreadful  bitterness.  "  On  the  pity  of  others  ? 
They  can't  do  it,  besides.  They  can't  support  us.  And  even 
if  they  could,  how  could  we  accept  it?" 

His  hand,  with  the  rapid,  hovering  movement  so  charac- 


326  THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

teristic  of  the  blind,  felt  over  the  bedclothes  and  found  hers. 
He  was  acquiring  this  blind  touch  with  extraordinary 
rapidity. 

"  Madge,  do  you  hate  me  for  having  married  you?"  he 
asked.  "  Would  it  have  been  better  for  you  if  we  had  never 
seen  each  other?  Here  are  you,  tied — eternally  tied — to  a 
beggar  and  a  cripple,  half  a  man  with  half  a  face !" 

For  one  moment  she  winced  at  the  thought  of  that  which 
she  did  not  yet  know.  Supposing  it  was  very  terrible,  sup- 
posing she  cried  out  at  it  ?  But  she  recovered  herself  at  once. 

"  I  bless  God  every  day  for  your  love,  dear,"  she  said. 

He  was  silent  after  this  a  little,  his  fingers  playing  over 
hers. 

"  I  am  getting  blind  man's  hands  already,"  he  said.  "  I 
can  feel  which  your  rings  are.  There,  that  is  the  wedding- 
ring,  that  is  easy,  and  the  one  with  sapphires  in  it.  No,  it 
can't  be  that,  there  are  four  stones  in  this,  and  there  are  only 
three  sapphires.  Ah,  that  is  the  ruby  ring ;  do  you  remember 
how  you  scolded  me  for  giving  it  you?  Then  on  the  next 
finger  one  pearl :  that  is  easy.  Then  the  first  finger,  no  rings 
there,  but — yes,  at  that  knuckle  the  little  scar  that  runs  up 
halfway  to  the  next  knuckle,  where  you  cut  your  finger  to 
the  bone  when  you  were  a  girl  over  the  broken  glass." 

Madge  felt  herself  suddenly  turn  white  and  cold.  He  had 
felt  the  little  scar  on  her  finger  with  absolute  accuracy,  trac- 
ing it  from  where  it  started  to  where  it  finished.  And  if  he 
could  do  this  with  so  little  a  scar,  what  of  other  scars  that 
would  be  within  reach  of  his  hands  always  ?  He  would  find 
them  out,  too ;  he  would  guess ;  all  their  attempts  at  con- 
cealment from  him  of  what  his  injuries  really  were  would  be 
futile.  He  must  come  to  know. 

But  he  was  busy  just  now  on  the  exploration  of  his  powers 
of  touch.  It  was  a  new  game ;  already  touch  was  be- 
ginning to  be  a  new  thing  to  him,  and  whereas  he  had 
regarded  his  hands  hitherto  as  holders  to  grasp  other  things, 
prehensile  endings  to  the  arms  merely,  he  was  now  beginning 
to  find  out  new  powers  in  the  soft-tipped  fingers.  He  was 
like  a  child  which  has  hitherto  regarded  its  legs  merely  as 
agreeable  though  silent  play-fellows,  who  begins  to  see  that  a 
hitherto  undreamed-of  power  of  locomotion  resides  in  them. 

This  was  fascinating  to  Evelyn ;  for  the  moment  there  was 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  327 

a  sudden  hope  springing  up.  It  was  like  a  message  of  relief 
coming  to  a  beleagured  garrison. 

"  Why,  if  I  can  do  this  already,"  he  said,  "  who  knows 
what  it  may  not  grow  to  ?  Madge,  I  am  sure  I  could  not  have 
felt  so  much  before — before  it  happened.  Quick,  give  me 
something,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  it  is.  What  if  the  form 
and  the  shape  of  things  has  not  been  annihilated  for  me?" 

And  so  this  game,  for  so  it  was,  began  to  interest  him. 
For  him,  since  some  measure  of  the  excitement,  the  chance, 
the  experimentalism  of  life,  had  begun  to  come  back,  the 
Angel  of  Pain  relaxed  the  screws  a  little,  yet  her  hands  did 
not  altogether  leave  them.  But  poor  Madge !  The  Angel  of 
the  relentless  hands  and  tender  face  looked  gravely  on  her. 
She  had  to  bear  very  much,  and  bear  it  with  a  smiling  face 
and  cheerful  voice,  fetching  books  for  Evelyn  to  identify, 
and  small  objects  from  his  dressing-case  and  what-not.  The 
screws  were  turned  rather  smartly  for  her ;  it  was  inevitable 
that  he  should  before  very  long  identify  his  own  face,  iden- 
tify the  damage  there.  She  herself  had  not  done  so  yet,  but 
awfully  as  she  had  feared  that  for  herself,  she  now  feared  it 
more  for  him.  He  was  building  so  much,  she  knew  that,  on 
a  place  where  no  foundation  was  possible.  It  would  all  sink 
into  the  mire  and  clay.  He  would  learn,  as  she  would  have 
to  learn,  how  dreadful  that  was :  his  sensitive,  hovering  fin- 
gers with  their  light  touch  and  constructive  imagination 
would  build  up  and  realise  by  degrees.  He  would  know  that 
the  worst  fear  of  all  was  fulfilled. 

That  view  of  his,  which  Madge  knew  so  well  he  would 
take  when  he  learned,  one  way  or  another,  of  the  wreck  that 
had  come  to  his  face,  might  or  might  not  be  a  shallow  view, 
but  that  view  he  would  assuredly  take,  and  construe  her  love 
for  him  into  mere  pity  and  forbearance.  She  did  not  love 
him  for  his  face — he  would  not  say  that — but  his  face  was 
part  of  him,  and  if  that  was  spoiled,  so  surely  was  part  of 
her  love  spoiled.  Body  and  soul  she  had  loved  him,  but  how 
could  a  woman  love  a  sightless,  scarred  thing?  He  would 
grant,  no  doubt,  that  her  love  for  him  went  further  than  that 
which  was  now  hideous,  but  would  she,  to  put  it  from  her 
own  point  of  view,  have  scarred  and  hacked  and  blinded  her 
own  face,  and  gone  back  to  him  who  saw,  in  perfect  confi- 
dence that  his  love  for  her  would  be  undiminished  and  un- 
deterred, knowing  that  it  lay  too  deep  for  any  such  superficial 


328  THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

maiming  to  injure?  She  knew  well  she  would  not,  for  love, 
however  spiritual,  includes  the  body  as  well  as  the  spirit,  and 
however  fine,  cannot  but  take  the  body  as  the  outward  and 
visible  sign  of  the  beloved  soul,  its  expression  and  aura.  And 
how  could  he  to  whom  the  surface  of  beauty  and  loveliness 
had  been  by  profession  such  a  study  and  worship,  still  think, 
whatever  her  asserverations  to  the  contrary,  that  her  love  for 
him  was  as  complete  as  it  had  been  ?  And,  to  get  nearer  the 
truth,  would  not  he  be  right?  She  did  not  know  about  that 
yet ;  she  had  not  seen.  At  present  she  could  not  think  of  his 
face  as  other  than  it  had  been ;  all  she  knew  was  that,  in  spite 
of  herself,  she  dreaded  with  her  whole  soul  the  removal  of 
those  bandages.  What  if  she  shrank  and  winced  at  the  sight  ? 
Those  slim,  delicate  fingers  of  the  Angel  of  Pain  tightened 
the  screw,  and  the  kind  eyes  looked  at  her,  seeing  how  she 
bore  it.  If  there  was  a  terrible  moment  coming  for  Evelyn 
when  his  fingers,  which  were  now  to  be  to  him  his  eyes,  told 
him  what  he  looked  like,  there  was  a  moment,  a  double 
moment,  coming  for  her.  She  had  first  to  control  herself,  to 
make  him  believe,  whatever  she  saw,  that  she  saw  no  differ- 
ence; nothing  that  made  her  love  one  jot  less  urgent  and 
insistent;  she  had  also,  with  a  feigned  conviction  that  had 
got  to  convince  him,  to  assure  him  that  his  fingers  were  at 
fault,  that  there  was  no  scar  where  he  said  there  was  a  scar, 
that  there  was  no  empty  hole.  .  .  .  That  she  knew. 
What  she  did  not  know  was  how  to  face  it  all. 

At  present,  anyhow,  by  a  great  effort,  she  put  off  the  mo- 
ment which  she  foresaw  must  come.  He  could  not  remain 
indefinitely  ignorant,  his  own  hands  must  some  day  inform 
him.  But  just  now  he  was  eager  and  interested  in  this  new 
game.  By  a  splendid  effort  of  vitality  and  will,  he  had 
pushed  into  the  background  the  fact  of  his  blindness:  he 
had  put  it  for  the  time  being,  anyhow,  among  the  inevitable 
and  accepted  facts  of  life,  while  he  had  filled  his  foreground 
with  the  fact  that  he  had  eyes  in  his  fingers.  How  glorious 
that  bit  of  bravery  was  she  knew  well,  for  he  was  so  brave 
that  just  now  he  was  not  even  acting;  he  genuinely  looked 
forward  to  the  future,  not  without  hope.  At  her  bidding  he 
had  left  the  grinding  difficulties  of  the  future  alone,  he  had 
left  the  question  of  the  stark  fact  as  to  how  they  were  to  live, 
he  had  left  also  the  fact  of  his  own  supreme  deprivation,  and 
with  a  splendid  effort  he  looked  on  the  possibilities  that 


THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN  329 

might  lie  in  front  of  them,  not  on  the  limitations,  cramping 
and  binding,  that  certainly  lay  there. 

"  Yes,  all  those  things  are  easy,"  he  said ;  "  of  course  I  can 
tell  a  toothpick  and  a  sovereign-case,  that  is  a  mere  effort  of 
memory.  But  let's  go  on,  if  you  are  not  tired  of  it.  You 
see,  dear,  you've  got  to  educate  me  now;  I  am  just  a  child 
again,  learning  a  new  set  of  letters.  Now  give  me  really 
new  letters." 

Now  Lady  Dover  a  day  before,  in  her  quiet  way,  had  tele- 
graphed to  London  for  a  couple  of  packs  of  blind  cards. 
They  had  the  index  in  raised  cardboard  in  the  corner,  and 
had  arrived  this  morning.  She  had  put  them  in  the  dressing- 
room  adjoining  his  bedroom,  and  had  just  mentioned  it  to 
Madge,  in  the  way  that,  had  she  been  a  stranger  in  the  house, 
she  might  have  mentioned  where  the  bath-room  was. 

"  Mr.  Dundas  is  so  eager  and  alive,"  she  had  said,  "  that 
I  thought,  dear  Madge,  that  he  might  like  to  begin  any 
moment  to  accustom  himself  a  little,  poor  fellow,  to  his  new 
circumstances.  So  you  will  find  a  couple  of  packs  of  raised 
cards,  I  think  they  call  them,  in  the  dressing-room.  I  thought 
he  might  perhaps  feel  inclined  to  experiment  with  them." 

So  Madge  fetched  them  now,  and  a  couple  of  minutes 
afterwards  she  and  Evelyn  were  deep  in  a  game  of  picquet. 
His  childish  pleasure  in  "  new  things"  stood  him  in  good 
stead  now ;  he  got  as  excited  as  a  schoolboy  over  the  riddle 
of  what  his  hand  contained.  Again  and  again  he  fingered 
the  raised  index  in  the  corner,  with  sudden  bursts  of  triumph 
when  he  solved  it  to  his  own  satisfaction. 

"  Ah,  I  used  to  call  you  slow  at  picquet,  Madge,"  he  cried, 
"  but  you  can't  retaliate.  How  very  good  for  you !  If  you 
call  me  slow,  I  shall  merely  throw  the  cards  away  and  burst 
into  tears.  Seven  or  nine,  which  on  earth  is  it  ?  Don't  look 
and  tell  me.  I  trust  you  not  to  look." 

But  he  soon  got  tired,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  Madge 
was  not  more  tired  than  he.  When  he  waited  long,  feeling 
with  those  thin  finger  tips  at  the  index,  it  was  bad  enough 
for  her ;  but  it  was  worse  when  he  felt  the  card  right  almost 
immediately,  and  almost  laughed  with  pleasure  at  his  newly- 
acquired  quickness — he,  who  used  to  be  so  quick!  And  all 
the  time  the  certainty  of  the  moment  that  was  coming  when 
he  should  learn  all  that  had  happened  darkened  her  with  an 
amazement  of  pity.  What  would  he  feel  when  he  knew  that  ? 


330  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

And  what  would  she  feel?  And  how,  if  that  was  very  bad, 
would  she  have  power  to  conceal  it,  so  that  he  should  believe, 
so  that  she  couid  force  him  to  believe  that  it  was  not  there? 

Two  mornings  after  Madge  slept  on  very  late ;  but  before 
she  came  down  she  had  been  in  to  see  Evelyn,  and  subse- 
quently had  a  talk  to  the  nurse,  who  told  her  that  Dr.  Inglis 
had  already  seen  her  husband,  and  that  he  intended  to  take 
the  bandages  off  his  eyes  that  day.  The  wounds  had  healed 
in  a  manner  almost  marvellous,  and  they  would  now  be  the 
better  for  the  air  and  light.  And  though  Madge  as  she  went 
downstairs  felt  that  only  thankfulness  ought  to  be  in  her 
heart,  she  felt  that  she  carried  some  sort  of  death-warrant 
in  her  pocket. 

The  post  had  just  come  in,  and  as  she  entered  the  break- 
fast-room, from  which  Lord  Dover  had  already  gone,  but 
where  his  wife  still  waited  for  Madge,  ready  to  make  fresh 
tea  on  her  entry,  she  found  a  letter  by  her  plate  directed  in 
a  handwriting  that  was  very  familiar  to  her.  She  wanted  to 
open  it  at  once,  but  instead  she  pushed  it  aside. 

"  What  a  glorious  morning,  dear  Madge,"  said  Lady 
Dover.  "  Dr.  Inglis  has  already  made  me  his  morning 
report.  He  has  no  further  anxiety,  I  think,  at  all.  I  am  so 
glad." 

She  herself  had  a  pile  of  letters,  of  which  she  had  opened 
only  about  half,  but  abandoned  them  entirely  to  talk  to 
Madge,  and  make  her  tea.  But  the  sight  of  all  those  letters, 
somehow,  diverted  Madge's  attention  from  her  own,  and  a 
sudden  thought  struck  her,  which  was  new. 

"  Lady  Dover,"  she  said  abruptly,  "  I  believe  you  have 
been  putting  all  manner  of  visitors  off  because  of  poor 
Evelyn." 

Lady  Dover  looked  up  in  gentle,  clear-eyed  acquiescence. 

"  Why,  my  dear,  it  was  most  important  he  should  be  quite 
quiet,"  she  said. 

Madge  arrested  the  hand  that  was  pouring  out  her  tea. 

"  Ah,  you  dear,"  she  said,  "  and  all  these  days  I  never 
thought  of  it,  or  thanked  you." 

The  spout  of  the  teapot  poured  a  clear  amber  stream  on  to 
the  table-cloth. 

"  And  I  have  spilt  the  tea,  too,"  said  Madge.  "  But  I  do 
thank  you,  and — and  I  am  frightened !" 

"  There  is  nothing  wrong  ?" 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  331 

"  No ;  but  they  are  going  to  take  the  bandages  off,  and 
what  shall  I  see  ?  Will  you  be  there,  too,  and  help  me  not 
to  mind  if  it  is  dreadful?  You  see — you  see,  I  suppose  I 
loved  his  face  as  well,  why  not,  and  if  all  that  is  terribly 
changed.  .  .  .  They  have  told  me  it  will  be.  And  he  must 
not  guess  that  I  mind,  that  I  even  see  it  is  different.  And 
when  his  hands  tell  him  what  has  happened,  as  they  will,  I 
must  still  convince  him  somehow  that  to  me  there  is  no 
difference.  Oh,  I  want  help !"  she  cried.  "  Indeed  it  is  not 
only  for  me,  I  want  it  for  him — I  must  convince  him  that  it 
does  not  matter." 

But  at  this  point  Lady  Dover  failed  a  little.  She  was  not, 
in  spite  of  her  obvious  kindness  and  sympathy,  quite  human 
enough  to  go  to  the  depths  that  Madge's  gropings  reached 
blind  hands  to.  The  trials  and  difficulties  that  came  within 
her  ken,  the  loss  of  someone  loved,  the  parching  of  love  in 
what  had  been  a  fountain,  she  could  have  understood,  but 
the  fear  of  a  maimed  face  affecting  love  she  could  not  quite 
grasp.  Her  idea  of  love  may  perhaps  have  been  spiritually 
finer,  it  may  also  perhaps  have  not  been  adequately  human. 

There  was  a  pause,  anyhow,  and  since  nothing  but  imme- 
diate and  spontaneous  reply  was  conceivable  from  Madge's 
point  of  view,  she  took  up  her  letter  again. 

"  This,  too,"  she  said,  "  it  is  from  Philip." 

But  to  that  Lady  Dover  responded  instantly. 

"  Then,  dear,  you  will  want  to  read  it  alone,"  she  said. 
"  And  if  you  can  tell  me  about  it  afterwards,  and  if  I  can 
be  of  any  use,  advising  or  suggesting,  you  will  come  to  me, 
will  you  not?  But,  dear  Madge,  he  would  not  write  unless 
he  had  something  very  particular  to  say,  and,  personally, 
whenever  I  see  a  letter  that  may  be  very  private,  I  always 
keep  it  till  I  am  alone.  So  let  me  leave  you  alone,  dear.  I 
see  they  have  brought  in  a  fresh  hot  dish  for  you  of  some 
sort,  and  I  have  just  made  the  tea.  I  shall  be  in  my  room." 

Here  again  tact  played  a  great  part;  she  did  not  look  at 
Madge,  either  inviting  or  repelling  confidence.  And  without 
the  least  suspicion  of  hurry  or  of  lingering  she  left  the  room, 
with  her  pile  of  letters,  opened  and  unopened. 

Madge  waited  a  minute  or  two.  Then  with  a  sudden  me- 
chanical series  of  movements,  she  tore  open  the  envelope, 
took  out  Philip's  letter,  and  read  it.  It  was  dated  from 
Pangbourne. 


332  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

MY  DEAREST  MADGE. 

I  have  every  right  to  say  that,  and  you  must  not  mind.  I 
heard  only  last  night  of  the  terrible  thing  that  has  happened 
to  Evelyn,  and  unless  I  am  stopped  by  a  telegram  from  you 
or  Lady  Dover  I  shall  come  up  to  Glen  Callan  at  once  to  see 
if  I  can  be  of  any  use.  You  will  want  somebody,  anyhow,  to 
look  after  you  both  when  you  move.  I  write  to  Lady  Dover 
by  the  same  post ;  she  will  receive  my  letter  at  the  time  you 
receive  this.  She  will  not  mind  my  proposing  myself — in 
fact  she  has  asked  me  to  before  now. 

I  have  just  come  here  from  the  New  Forest:  you  will  not 
have  heard  what  has  happened.  Tom  Merivale  is  dead,  the 
Hermit,  you  know.  I  will  tell  you  about  it  all  when  we 
meet;  now  I  can  only  say  that  the  sorrows  of  the  world 
were,  I  believe,  suddenly  revealed  to  him,  and  he  died  of  it. 
And  some  of  the  sorrows  of  the  world,  you  poor  dear,  have 
been  revealed  to  Evelyn  and  you,  and  perhaps  to  me.  Only 
we  have  got  to  live  and  not  die. 

And  before  we  meet  I  want  very  sincerely  and  humbly  to 
ask  your  pardon  for  all  the  hard  things  I  have  thought  and 
said  and  done.  Please  try  to  grant  it  me  before  you  see  me, 
so  that  I  know  that  it  is  implied  in  your  handshake. 

So  unless  you  stop  me  you  will  see  me  on  the  evening  of 
the  day  on  which  you  get  this,  and  before  then  I  want  you 
to  grant  me  a  further  favour.  You  must  accept,  please, 
tacitly  and  without  any  word  on  the  subject,  just  the  little 
material  assistance  that  I  can  give  you  and  him.  In  other 
words,  do  not  let  any  material  anxiety  increase  or  aggravate 
what  you  two  have  to  endure,  and  which  no  one  can  help 
you  about.  Only  where  you  can  be  helped,  accept  such  help, 
and  let  the  privilege  of  helping  you  be  mine.  In  doing  this 
you  will  be  helping  me  more  than  I  can  say:  you  will  be 
helping  me  to  learn  the  lesson  of  the  sorrows  of  the  world, 
which,  as  I  now  know,  we  must  all  learn.  And  I  am, — 
Your  loving  friend,  PHILIP  HOME. 

P.S. — I  express  myself  badly ;  but  I  think  you  can  easily 
understand  what  I  mean.  Just  read  my  letter  straightfor- 
wardly, I  mean  all  I  have  said,  and  I  think  I  have  said  all  I 
mean.  How  fully  my  mother  endorses  it  all,  I  need  not  tell 
you.  She  says  (she  has  just  read  it)  that  it  is  too  business- 
like. Well,  I'm  a  business  man,  but  her  criticism  encourages 
me  to  think  that  it  is  clear. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  333 

Madge  read  this  through  once  without  comprehension: 
the  predominant  feeling  in  her  mind  was  that  it  was  some 
kind  stranger  who  was  writing  to  her ;  she  did  not  know  the 
man.  Yet  even  as  she  read  there  were  things  very  familiar 
to  her:  Philip  somehow  was  in  it  all.  Then  at  the  second 
reading  the  simplicity  and  clearness  of  it — that  which  Mrs. 
Home  had  called  business-like — made  itself  felt,  and  it  was 
Philip,  after  all,  the  potential  Philip.  But  some  immense 
change  had  happened,  yet  immense  though  it  was,  she  saw 
now  it  was  no  stranger  who  had  written  it,  but  he  himself, 
only — only  he  had  learned  something,  as  he  said. 

But  how  his  begging  for  her  forgiveness  cut  her  to  the 
heart !  That  he  should  do  this,  while  it  was  she  whose  part 
it  was,  only  she  had  not  been  woman  enough.  She  had  been 
sorry — God  knows  she  had  been  sorry  for  him,  and  sorry  for 
her  own  part  in  the  catastrophe  of  July.  But  she  had  known 
it  was  inevitable,  she  could  not  have  married  him,  she  could 
not  have  done  otherwise  than  marry  Evelyn,  and  it  was 
perhaps  this  sense  that  she  was  but  a  tool  in  the  hands  of  the 
irresistible  law  which  had  excused  her  to  herself,  so  that  she 
had  said  almost  that  it  was  the  Power  that  made  them  all 
three  what  they  were  that  had  done  this.  And  thus  her 
human  pity  and  sorrow  had  been  veiled.  But  now  that  veil 
was  plucked  aside ;  whatever  great  and  inexorable  laws  ruled 
feeling  and  action,  nothing  could  alter  the  fact  that  here  was 
she,  unhappy  and  sick  at  heart,  and  that  another  man,  who 
loved  her,  unhappy,  too,  was  man  enough  to  forget  his  own 
unhappiness,  to  forget,  too,  that  it  was  she  who,  willing  or 
unwilling,  had  brought  it  on  him,  and  let  himself  be  guided 
only  by  the  divine  and  human  impulse  of  Pity,  so  that  he 
desired  nothing  in  the  world  more  than  to  be  allowed  to  help 
her. 

Yet  how  bitter  it  was,  somehow,  that  it  should  be  he  of  all 
men  in  the  world  who  should  offer  to  help.  And  his  offer  was 
so  -humble,  yet  so  assured,  it  was  made  so  simply,  and  yet- 
here  was  Philip's  hand  again — so  authoritatively.  "  You  will 
want  someone  with  you  to  look  after  you.  .  .  ."  That 
was  Philip,  too,  and  though  it  was  all  bitter,  what  unspeak- 
able comfort  it  was  to  feel  that  somebody  strong  and  tender 
was  waiting  to  take  care  of  them,  only  asking  to  be  allowed 
to  take  care  of  them.  In  spite  of  Lady  Dover  and  all  her 


334  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

kindness,  Madge  felt  so  lonely:  no  one  could  understand 
that  so  well  as  Philip,  who  had  felt  lonely,  too. 

And  Tom  Merivale  was  dead!  Ah,  what  was  happening 
to  the  world  ?  Was  happiness  being  slowly  withdrawn  from 
it,  leaving  misery  only  there  ?  It  seemed  indeed  as  if  sorrow, 
like  some  dreadful  initiation,  had  to  be  submitted  to  by  every- 
one, even  those  who  appeared  to  have  been  born  in  the  royal 
purple  of  happiness.  How  much  had  come  into  her  own 
immediate  circle  in  so  short  a  time!  To  Merivale  it  had 
come  in  so  blinding  and  overwhelming  a  flood  that  it  had 
killed  him  who  had  radiated  happiness.  To  Evelyn,  it  had 
come,  blinding,  also,  and  that  cruel  stroke,  more  cruel  be- 
cause it  was  so  illogical,  like  the  blasting  of  the  tree  by 
lightning  down  in  the  Forest,  had  stricken  her,  too,  and  had 
not  perhaps  dealt  its  worst  blow  yet.  It  had  come  to  Philip 
through  her  in  a  way  perhaps  not  less  illogical.  For  it  was 
not  in  her  to  control  love  or  not  to  love ;  her  meeting  with 
Evelyn,  her  loving  him,  was  as  much  an  accident  as  the 
descent  of  the  lightning-flash  or  the  scattering  of  the  lead 
pellets.  Yet  Philip  had  not  died,  and  though  he  might  have 
said  that  his  life  was  wrecked,  that  all  that  remained  for  him 
was  hatred  and  despair,  he  had  struggled  to  shore,  he  stood 
there  now  strong  and  unembittered,  and  held  out  his  hands 
to  her.  He  had  learned  something  it  seemed  from  these 
accidents.  He  had  learned,  perhaps,  not  to  call  them  acci- 
dents. Was  he  right?  Were  these  vague  lines  part  of  a 
pattern,  of  a  design  so  huge  that  she  could  not  yet  see  it  was 
a  design  at  all  ? 

Madge  had  forgotten  about  her  breakfast ;  it  lay  still  un- 
tasted,  while  she  mused  with  wide  eyes.  And  as  this  struck 
her,  she  stood  up  and  pushed  her  plate  from  her.  Greatly 
as  she  had  grown  in  human  strength  and  tenderness,  since 
that  day  so  few  weeks  ago,  when  she  had  promised  to  marry 
Philip,  she  felt  now  suddenly  like  a  little  child,  who  wanted 
to  be  led.  There  were  dark  places,  she  knew,  before  her. 
She  must  try  not  to  be  frightened,  she  must  realise  that  there 
was  nothing  to  be  frightened  about.  And  thus,  feebly,  hesi- 
tatingly, she  put  out  her  hand. 


TWENTY-SECOND 


'VELYN  woke  that  morning  out  of  one  of  those 
cruel,  dreamless  sleeps  that  seem  for  a  little  while 
on  waking  to  have  expunged  all  memory,  and  he 
lay  a  few  minutes  conscious  vaguely  of  something 
a  little  wrong,  but  for  the  moment  not  knowing  where  he 
was,  and  not  caring  to  make  the  effort  to  guess.  Then  sud- 
denly, like  the  stroke  of  a  black  wing  across  the  sky,  memory 
came  home  for  the  day.  Whenever  he  woke  in  the  hereafter 
he  would  awake  to  that,  to  his  maimed,  ruined  life.  The 
knowledge  of  it  was  more  unbearable  to-day  than  it  had 
been  yesterday ;  to-morrow  it  would  be  worse ;  it  would  keep 
growing  worse. 

Then  out  of  that  utter  darkness  there  grew  a  little  light. 
It  might  have  been  even  more  desperate — how  was  that? 
Then  he  remembered  Madge.  She  had  seen,  and  the  worst 
of  all  that  he  had  imagined  was  not  true. 

This  morning  he  felt  within  himself  a  sudden  accession  of 
strength;  his  long  sleep-acting  with  his  extraordinary  re- 
cuperative powers,  had  set  fresh  tides  of  vitality  on  the  flow. 
Something  had  happened  lately  which  in  spite  of  all,  inter- 
ested him — ah,  yes,  the  gradual  compensating  sensitiveness 
in  his  hands.  He  had  played  a  whole  partie  of  picquet  with 
Madge,  using  those  cards  with  raised  indexes.  The  partie 
had  only  taken  an  hour — not  bad  for  a  beginning;  to-day 
perhaps  he  would  be  a  little  quicker.  To-day  also  these 
bandages  that  worried  him  with  their  close-clinging,  sticky 
feeling  would  be  removed,  and  with  regard  to  them  he  could 
not  help  half-thinking  that  when  they  were  gone,  some  light, 
however  dim,  must  reach  him.  Surely  the  blackness  would 
become  a  sort  of  grey.  It  was  unreasonable,  he  knew  well, 
but  he  could  not  help  feeling  that  it  must  be  so.  But  the  fact 
that  he  thought  about  the  picquet  he  had  played  and  the 
greater  celerity  with  which  he  was  going  to  play  it,  even 
the  idea,  which  he  himself  knew  to  be  purely  imaginary,  that 

335 


336  THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN 

he  would  not  feel  so  terribly  alone  and  in  the  dark  when 
these  bandages  were  removed,  all  pointed  one  way:  he 
looked,  or  tried  to  look,  forward  instead  of  brooding  back- 
wards. And  in  such  matters,  as  indeed  in  all  others,  the  will 
is  the  deed,  provided  only  that  the  will  be  undivided.  So  for 
the  time  the  utter  blackness  of  his  waking  moments  was 
gone,  the  tiny  things  of  life,  as  well  as  life's  ultimate  possi- 
bilities, still  retained  their  interest,  and  while  he  waited  for 
his  breakfast,  he  kept  feeling  with  his  nimble,  hovering 
hands  at  all  objects  within  reach:  the  woolliness  of  the 
blankets,  the  cool  texture  of  the  sheets,  a  certain  slipperiness 
of  counterpane,  which  eventually  he  determined  to  be  silk- 
covered.  Then  there  was  wall-paper  above  his  head ;  there 
was  a  pattern  on  that,  and  with  both  hands  he  traced  his  way 
up  the  slight  raising  of  the  design,  stopping  often,  visualis- 
ing to  himself  what  the  picture  of  the  course  of  his  fingers 
would  be  like.  .  .  .  There  was  a  spray  of  some  sort ;  it 
branched  to  the  left  and  ended  in  narrow,  slender  leaves. 
On  the  right  it  went  higher  before  it  branched;  there  were 
leaves  there,  too,  and  above  again  there  started  a  stem  like 
the  one  he  had  traced  a  minute  before.  Yes;  it  repeated 
here,  for  first  to  the  left  went  out  a  thinner  stem  with  nar- 
row leaves ;  then  again  to  the  right  it  branched,  and  narrow 
leaves  forked  out  from  it.  He  had  seen  it,  of  course,  before, 
on  the  evening  he  arrived  here,  but  he  could  not  remember 
it  from  that.  .  .  .  Thin  stem  and  narrow  leaves — ah,  a 
Morris  paper  of  willow  twigs !  But  the  feeling  fingers  had 
given  it  him;  without  this  exploration  he  could  not  have 
known  it. 

This  was  an  enormous  advance,  and,  without  pause,  for  he 
instinctively  knew  the  step  that  came  through  the  dressing- 
room  adjoining,  he  called  out: 

"  Oh,  Madge,  such  a  discovery !"  he  cried.  "  Blanket 
here,  sheet  here,  a  coverlet  with  silk  on  the  top,  and  the 
paper — it  is  a  Morris  willow  paper.  I  found  that  out.  And 
I  want  breakfast." 

Yet  somehow  Madge's  heart  sank  at  his  elation.  The  Eve- 
lyn who  spoke  was  the  old  Evelyn :  it  was  in  such  a  voice  and 
with  such  joy  of  discovery  that  he  had  told  her  at  Pang- 
bourne  how  the  purple  of  the  clematis  would  heighten  the 
value  of  the  pink  and  butter-haired  Jewess  who  sat  in  the 
centre.  There  was  just  the  same  triumphant  ring  about  it 


THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN  337 

And  as  such  it  was  unnatural ;  she  feared  he  was  recovering 
too  quickly :  for  this  elation  there  would  be  a  corresponding" 
depression.  It  was  too  sudden  to  satisfy  her.  All  this  was 
instantaneous  and  instinctive ;  she  feared  really  without: 
knowing  she  feared.  But  she  had  come  prepared  for  the 
further  development  of  his  newly-awakened  interest  in  the 
senses  that  resided  in  fingers,  and  had  brought  with  her  some 
small  objects  of  baffling  shape.  She  had,  too,  in  her  hand 
Philip's  letter. 

The  first  two  or  three  were  easy  to  him.  A  knife  certain- 
ly, but  a  knife  with  no  edge  to  it.  And  of  this  he  talked. 

"  Dessert  knife,"  he  said.  "  No,  not  dessert  knife,  because 
the  blade  of  a  dessert  knife  would,  anyhow,  be  as  cold  as  the 
handle,  even  if  both  were  made  of  metal.  And  the  blade  of 
this  is  warmer  than  the  handle.  Oh,  shade  of  Sherlock 
Holmes!  Cold  handle,  warmer  blade.  Oh,  Madge,  how 
easy.  Paper-knife  of  course;  silver  handle,  ivory  cutter. 
Ask  another." 

"  I  haven't  asked  how  you  are  yet,"  said  she. 
"  Quite  well.  And  I  want  breakfast.  I  say,  Madge,  da 
you  know  just  for  the  moment,  I  don't  mind  being  blind. 
You  see  there's  a  new  sense  to  cultivate.  I  always  love  ex- 
periments. Ah,  damn  it,  there's  no  colour  left.  But  there  is 
shape;  somehow,  I  feel  there's  a  lot  to  learn  in  shape. 
There's  warmth,  too;  of  course  I  knew  that  ivory  was 
warmer — less  cold  than  metal,  but  now  I  have  found  it  true 
without  help.  Give  me  another." 

This  time  it  was  an  absurd  Dutch  cow,  spindle-legged  and 
huge  of  body  and  head,  a  cream-jug  cow,  into  which  the 
cream  was  put  via  an  aperture  in  the  back,  on  which  sat  a 
gigantic  fly,  and  from  which,  via  the  mouth,  it  was  conveyed 
to  tart.  This  was  puzzling,  and  he  thought  aloud  over  it. 

"  Four  legs,"  he  said,  "  as  thin  as  a  stag's.  So  where's  the 
head?  That  won't  do;  horn  each  side,  and — good  Lord! 
what's  this  on  the  middle  of  the  back?  It's  movable,  too. 
Shall  I  break  anything?" 

"  Not  if  you  are  not  violent." 

"  Well,  a  big  head  with  a  switch-horn,  and  a  mouth,  why 
it's  from  ear  to  ear.  And  a  lid  on  the  abortion's  back.  Tail 
— is  it  a  tail ;  oh,  yes,  it  must  be,  it  comes  from  there — curled' 
up  till  it  nearly  reaches  the  hole  in  the  back." 

He  paused  'a  moment,  feeling  it  with  nimble  fingers,  and 


338  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

though  Madge  could  not  see  his  forehead,  she  knew  from  his 
mouth  that  he  was  frowning.    Then  it  came  to  him. 

"  Dutch  cow,"  he  cried.  "  There's  an  insect,  a  fly,  I  should 
think,  sitting  on  the  hole  at  its  back,  where  you  put  the  cream 
in.  And  it  comes  out  of  its  mouth,  you  know.  Looks  rather 
as  if  it  was  being  sick." 

Madge's  letter  slipped  to  the  ground  as  she  applauded  this. 

"  Give  me  that  letter,"  he  said.  "  I'll  tell  you  whom  it  is 
from.  Oh,  there's  nurse;  is  it  breakfast?  I  am  so  hungry. 
I'll  tell  you  about  the  letter  afterwards." 

Then  for  a  moment  he  was  silent,  and  his  mouth  grew 
grave.  He  had  insisted  late  the  evening  before  on  being 
shaved,  and  the  smooth  chin,  the  smooth  upper  lip,  were 
clean  below  the  white  bandages.  The  nurse  had  been  con- 
federate to  this. 

"  You  see,  the  bandages  are  coming  off  to-morrow,"  he 
had  said,  "  and  Madge  would  hate  to  see  me  with  this  awful 
stubble.  Sometimes,  nurse,  I  useivt  to  shave  before  break- 
fast, and  she  always  cut  me — figuratively,  you  know — till  I 
did.  You'll  find  a  razor  about  somewhere.  Clip  it  first, 
please." 

So  to-day  he  had  cleanness  of  lip  and  chin,  and  now  when 
the  breakfast  was  being  brought  in,  Madge  drew  her  thumb 
and  fourth  finger  down  from  his  cheek  to  meet  and  pinch 
his  chin. 

"  You  were  afraid  I  should  cut  you,"  she  said  gently. 

"  Yes,  so  I  got  shaved  by  nurse.  Ah,  Madge,  sit  on  the 
bed,  just  there,  and  see  me  have  breakfast.  Have  you  had 
yours,  by-the-way?" 

Madge  recalled  the  events  of  the  morning. 

"  I  don't  think  I  have,"  she  said. 

"  Then  may  we  have  another  cup,  nurse  ?"  said  he.  "  Oh, 
it's  bacon,  I  can  smell  bacon.  Now,  Madge,  I'm  boss  of  this 
show.  You  may  think  you  were  going  to  feed  me ;  not  at  all 
— I'm  going  to  feed  you.  How  elusive  bacon  is.  Are 
you  sure  the  plate  is  there?  Oh,  I  felt  it,  then." 

Here  the  nurse  intervened,  but  with  laughter. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Dundas,  do  lie  quiet,  and  we  will  give  you  your 
breakfast.  Yes,  another  cup.  I'll  send  for  one.  But  your 
bed  will  be  '  all  over  '  bacon." 

Madge  made  a  negative  sign  to  her. 

"  There,  you've  got  a  piece,"  she  said.    "  Raise  it  slowly, 


THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN  339 

you  clumsy  boy!  That's  right;  now  wait.  Your  hand  is 
really  very  steady.  There!" 

And  she  slipped  it  off  the  fork  into  her  mouth. 

"  Oh,  Madge,"  he  cried,  "  how  greedy !  I  thought  I  was 
going  to  get  it.  And  I  can't  manage  everything.  I'll  give 
you  bacon  if  you'll  give  me  toast  and  butter." 

So  she  buttered  the  toast,  and  they  ate  it  like  children,  bite 
and  bite  about,  and  Evelyn  chivied  bacon  round  the  plate,  and 
fed  now  himself  and  now  her.  The  extra  cup  lingered  on  its 
way,  and  one  cup  did  for  them,  and  all  this  to  Madge  was  a 
sort  of  rehearsal  of  what  would  be.  And  it  was  a  rehearsal 
of  the  best  possible.  For  what  if  his  gaiety,  his  interest  in 
this  new  game  was  but  a  last  flare-up?  He  could  not  feel 
this  childish  excitement  in  the  entrancing  sport  of  feeding 
each  other,  always.  Besides,  even  if  he  did,  she  herself  did 
not  know  all  yet.  What  horror  perhaps  awaited  her  under 
the  bandages  of  that  swathed  face?  Tender  and  womanly 
and  loving  as  she  was,  she  could  not  help  wondering  as  to 
that.  She  had  put  up  her  hand  for  guidance  and  leading; 
she  wanted  nothing  else.  But  she  wanted  to  be  led  very 
strongly,  very  firmly. 

Then  when  breakfast  was  done,  Evelyn  went  straight  back 
to  this  identification  game.  A  match-box  was  easy,  because 
of  its  rough  sides,  a  cigarette  could  not  be  a  pencil,  because 
of  its  smell.  And " 

"  Oh,  the  letter !"  he  said. 

"  Dear,  it's  quite  impossible,"  said  Madge.  "  I'll  tell  you 
whom  it  is  from  with  pleasure ;  in  fact  I  meant  to  talk  to  you 
about  it.  I  brought  it  up  here  for  that  purpose,  to  read  it  to 
you " 

But  he  interrupted  again,  rather  peevishly. 

"  Ah,  that's  finished  then,"  he  said,  dropping  the  envelope. 

"  What  nonsense ;  you  can't  guess,"  said  she. 

"  It's  no  question  of  guessing.  You  brought  a  letter  in 
with  you.  and  didn't  mention  it.  You  knew  I  shouldn't — see. 
You  were  meaning  to  talk  about  it  afterwards.  Well,  it's 
either  the  Hermit  or  Philip.  Besides,  if  the  Hermit  wrote 
to  you,  you  would  have  told  me.  No,  it's  Philip." 

This  was  no  more  than  ordinary  reason  could  have  done. 

"  What  does  he  say  ?"  asked  Evelyn  in  a  harsh,  dry  tone. 
"  Does  he  say  he  is  very  sorry,  and  it  serves  us  right?  That 
is  the  correct  attitude,  I  should  think." 


340  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

Madge  put  a  cigarette  in  his  lips. 

"  Won't  you  smoke  ?"  she  asked. 

"  No,  it  doesn't  taste.  It's  like  smoking  in  a  tunnel.  About 
Philip  now?" 

"  He  doesn't  take  the  correct  attitude,"  said  she.  "  If  he 
had,  how  could  I  have  wanted  to  talk  to  you  about  him  ?  He 
wants  to  help  us,  Evelyn.  And  he  will  arrive  here  to-night, 
unless  we  stop  him  on  his  way  at  Inverness  or  Golspie." 

The  corners  of  his  mouth  were  compressed ;  she  knew  he 
was  frowning. 

"  Philip  ?"  he  said.    "  That  isn't  Philip." 

"  It  wasn't  perhaps,"  said  Madge,  "  but  it  is,  I  think. 
Things  have  happened — Mr.  Merivale  is  dead.  Philip  was 
there." 

"Dead?"  he  asked. 

"  Yes ;  I  only  know  about  it  from  Philip.  Oh,  yes,  you 
have  guessed  right.  I  can  only  tell  you  what  he  said.  Mr. 
Merivale  died  because — because  sorrow,  pain  were  revealed 
to  him.  He  died  very  suddenly — that  I  gather,  and  he  died 
terribly,  somehow.  I  know  no  more  than  what  I  tell  you." 

Evelyn  was  silent  a  little. 

"  Yet  he  was  the  happiest  man  I  ever  saw,"  he  said.  "  I 
used  to  feel  like  a  convict  in  chains  beside  him.  What  does 
it  all  mean  ?  Have  we  all  got  to  suffer  in  proportion " 

Again  he  broke  off. 

"  And  Philip  is  coming  here  ?"  he  asked.  Then  his  voice 
got  suddenly  shriller  and  more  staccato.  "  I  won't  see  him !" 
he  cried.  "  He  has  come  to  gloat  over  me.  My  God,  is  it  not 
enough " 

Madge  laid  her  two  hands  on  his  chest,  pressing  him 
gently  down  again. 

"  No,  my  darling,"  she  said,  "  he  will  not  come  for  that." 

"  Well,  then,  to  make  love  to  you  again,"  he  cried.  "  He 
knows  I  am  a  cripple,  a  blind  man,  a  blot  on  the  earth !" 

Madge  gave  a  great  sigh. 

"  Ah,  why  say  things  you  don't  mean  ?"  she  said.  "  And 
why  make  those  dagger-thrusts  at  me,  that  cannot  touch  me  ? 
No,  don't  go  on.  Be  silent,  dear,  or  else  beg  my  pardon,  and 
his.  I  am  sorry  I  should  have  to  ask  that,  but  you  have  said 
what  is  abominable!  Oh,  I  don't  want  words.  Just  nod 
your  head,  my  darling,  and  that  will  mean  it  is  said.  But  for 
the  sake  of  love,  I  must  have  that  token." 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  341 

"  Why  does  he  come  here,  then  ?"  he  asked. 

Madge  could  not  reply  for  the  moment;  she  felt  so  sick 
at  heart  and  helpless.  She  had  fancied,  poor  thing,  that  she 
had  catalogued,  so  to  speak,  all  the  troubles  and  difficulties 
which  Evelyn  had  to  face,  which  she  had  to  face  with  him, 
but  here  was  a  fresh  one,  that  attitude  of  suspicion  which 
besets  those  who  have  a  sense  missing,  and  who  imagine 
that  even  those  whom  they  love  and  trust  most  may  be  tak- 
ing advantage  of  their  defect.  Had  he  been  able  to  see  her 
face,  the  absolute  frankness  of  her  expression,  the  candour 
of  her  eyes  would  have  made  it  impossible  that  the  merest 
shadow  of  suspicion  should  have  crossed  his  mind,  that  peev- 
ish cry  "  he  has  come  to  gloat  over  me  or  to  make  love  to 
you,"  could  not  have  crossed  his  lips,  for  there  would  have 
been  no  impulse  in  his  mind  which  could  determine  the 
words.  Yet  they  had  been  spoken  by  him,  fretfully,  irritably, 
all  but  causelessly. 

But  cause  there  had  been,  and  that  cause  was  an  instinct 
to  ascribe  the  worst  motive  to  the  action  of  others  instead  of 
assuming  the  best.  That  was  to  be  a  foe  to  him  more  bitter 
and  relentless  than  his  sightlessness;  even  that  which  his 
bandages  concealed  would  not  draw  so  deeply  on  the  health- 
ful spring  of  kindly  sanity  which  alone  can  carry  a  man 
smiling  and  indulgent  through  the  frets  of  the  world. 

But  for  the  present  Madge  restored  his  balance. 

"  Oh,  Evelyn,"  she  said,  "  don't  disappoint  me,  dear,  or 
make  yourself  bitter.  You  have  been  so  brave  and  so  splen- 
did. Philip  is  coming  here — or  proposes  to  come  because — 
he  is  sorry  for  you,  because  in  spite  of  the  injury  we  did 
him  he  still  loves  me — why  not?  But  when  you  ask  if  he  is 
coming  to  make  love  to  me,  then,  dear,  you  let  something 
which  is  not  yourself  speak  for  you.  You  utter  counterfeit 
coin.  It  rings  false.  Besides,  you  have  not  heard  his  letter 
yet ;  I  will  read  it  you.  And  then  you  shall  take  back  what 
you  said,  but  did  not  mean  to  say." 

She  read  it  through,  every  word. 

"  And  now,  dear  ?"  she  said. 

But  the  corners  of  his  mouth  were  tremulous,  and  that  was 
enough ;  she  knew  well  why  he  could  not  speak.  So  she 
kissed  him  again,  and  no  more  was  said. 

Lady  Dover  usually  came  up  to  see  Evelyn  after  break- 


342  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

fast,  and  thus  it  was  quite  natural  that  she  should  be  there 
when  Dr.  Inglis  made  his  morning  visit.  She  had  already 
asked  him  whether  she  might  be  there  when  the  bandages 
were  removed,  and  so,  when  he  came  in  now,  she  said : 

"  We  are  going  to  make  quite  a  little  festival  of  congratu- 
lation this  morning,  Mr.  Dundas — that  is  to  say,  if  you  and 
Dr.  Inglis  will  allow  me  to  stop  and  see  how  wonderfully  Sir 
Francis'  surgery  and  Dr.  Inglis'  doctoring  have  succeeded." 

So  while  this  was  going  on,  she  and  Madge  sat  in  the 
window,  looking  out  on  to  the  broad  sunny  day.  The 
bracken  on  the  hillsides  was  already  beginning  to  turn 
colour,  and  Lady  Dover  said  in  a  low  voice,  for  fear  Evelyn 
should  hear,  and  be  wounded,  that  the  gold  of  the  sunlight 
striking  the  gold  of  the  bracken  made  each  appear  more 
golden.  There  was  time,  indeed,  for  a  good  deal  of  leisurely 
art-criticism  of  this  nature,  for  the  unswathing  of  his  face, 
the  gentle  withdrawal  of  the  lint  dressings  from  the  healed 
wounds  took  time,  and  more  than  once  the  nurse  went  out  to 
get  more  water  for  the  sponging  away  of  the  gum  of  plaster. 
For  Dr.  Inglis,  kind  man  of  silent  sympathy  as  he  was,  knew 
well  what  this  moment  must  inevitably  be  to  Madge — knew 
the  torture  of  suspense  in  which  she  must  be  awaiting  the 
sight  of  her  husband's  face.  Brave  as  he  well  knew  her  to  be, 
he  knew  also  that  she  would  have  here  to  summon  her  brav- 
ery to  her  aid ;  and  he  wanted  to  make  it  as  easy  for  her  as  he 
could,  and  thus  took  great  pains  to  render  the  sight  as  little 
painful  as  might  be.  But  he  could  do  so  little;  whatever 
sponging  and  smoothing  was  possible,  it  still  was  so  small  a 
salvage.  For  the  shot  had  struck  him  sideways,  ricocheting1 
off  the  rock,  and  on  his  forehead  there  was  a  long  wound, 
healed  indeed  as  well  as  it  would  ever  be  healed,  but  the  outer 
skin  had  been  destroyed,  and  it  showed  a  long,  pink  line,  as 
if  perhaps  some  corrosive  match  had  been  struck  on  it.  An- 
other such  went  across  the  right  cheek,  another  had  crossed 
the  left  eyebrow,  leaving  a  little  hairless  lane  between  the 
two  severed  sides  of  it.  One  eyelid  had  been  struck  and 
torn  before  the  pellet  did  its  deadlier  work,  and  the  other, 
though  intact  and  drawn  down  over  the  hole  of  the  eye- 
socket,  was  not  like  the  eyelid  of  a  man  whose  eyes  were 
closed  in  rest  or  sleep,  swelling  gently  over  the  eyeball  and 
lying  on  the  lower  lashes ;  it  hung  straight,  like  the  blind  of 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  343 

a  window,  for  there  was  nothing  beneath  to  cause  its  curva- 
ture. 

His  kind,  twinkle-eyed  Scotch  face  had  grown  grave  over 
his  operations,  but  he  guessed  what  the  suspense  to  Madge 
was,  and  rightly  decided  that  nothing  could  be  gained  by 
lengthening  it.  Then  he  completed  the  shaving  operations 
which  the  nurse  had  begun  the  evening  before  to  the  uncov- 
ered part  of  the  face,  and  brushed  into  order  his  thick  brown 
hair.  Finally  he  adjusted  a  pair  of  large  dark  spectacles. 
Evelyn  demurred  at  this. 

"  What  is  that  for?"  he  asked. 

"  Ah,  that  is  necessary,"  said  the  doctor ;  "  we  have  to  pro- 
tect the — the  place  of  the  worst  injury.  You  will  always 
have  to  wear  them,  I  am  afraid.  And  now  I  think  we  are 
ready." 

Madge  got  up  from  the  window-seat.  Though  she  had 
wished  Lady  Dover  to  be  there,  at  this  moment  she  cared  not 
one  farthing  who  was  there  or  who  was  not.  It  was  only 
she  and  Evelyn  who  mattered ;  Piccadilly  might  have  buzzed 
round  them,  and  she  would  have  been  unconscious  of  the 
crowd. 

And  she  looked — she  saw 

For  one  moment  she  stood  there  facing  him,  her  breath 
suspended,  only  conscious  of  some  deep-seated  terror  and 
dismay,  and  her  face  grew  white.  Once  she  tried  to  speak 
and  could  not,  for  she  knew  that  some  dreadful  exclamation 
alone  could  pass  her  lips.  Lady  Dover  had  got  up,  too,  and 
stood  by  her ;  she  looked  not  at  Evelyn  at  all,  but  at  Madge, 
and  before  the  pause  had  grown  appreciable  she  whispered 
to  her — 

"  Say  anything.    Don't  be  a  coward." 

It  was  therefore  as  well  that  Lady  Dover  had  come  with 
her,  otherwise  anything  might  have  happened,  Madge  might 
have  screamed  almost,  or  she  might  have  left  the  room  with- 
out saying  a  word,  so  dreadful  was  the  shock.  But  Lady 
Dover's  words  were  a  lash  to  her,  and  the  power  of  making 
an  effort  came  back. 

"  Ah,  dearest  Evelyn,"  she  said,  "  how  nice  to  see  your 
face  again." 

For  a  moment  the  tremor  in  her  voice,  the  imminent  sob  in 
her  throat,  all  but  mastered  her.  Yet  all  this  week  he  had 
been  so  brave,  and  for  very  shame  she  could  not  but  put  on 


344  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

the  semblance  of  bravery  and  try  to  infuse  her  speech  with 
a  grain  of  courage. 

"  It  is  good,  it  is  good  to  see  you,"  she  said,  and  the  first 
physical  horror  began  to  fade  a  little  as  her  love,  that  eternal, 
abiding  principle,  slid  out  from  under  the  paralysis  of  the 
other.  "  All  those  bandages  gone,  all  the  plaster  and  lint 
gone.  You  look  yourself,  do  you  know,  too — just,  just  your- 
self." 

She  turned  an  appealing  eye  on  Lady  Dover ;  that  was  un- 
necessary, because  she  was  quite  prepared  to  speak  as  soon 
as  Madge  stopped. 

"  I  must  congratulate  you  too,  Mr.  Dundas,"  she  said  in 
her  neat,  precise  tones.  "  Why,  you  look,  as  Madge  said, 
quite  natural ;  does  he  not,  Madge  ?  And  really  I  think  dark 
spectacles  are  rather  becoming.  I  shall  get  some  myself." 

Evelyn  had  not  spoken  yet ;  but  reasonably  or  not,  for  he 
had  been  quite  unreasonably  suspicious  once  before  that 
morning,  he  thought  he  detected  some  insincerity  in  these 
protestations.  And  with  one  quick  movement  of  his  hand 
he  took  the  spectacles  off. 

"  Are  they  really  becoming?"  he  asked.  "  Or  do  you  like 
me  better  without,  Madge  ?" 

Again  she  saw,  and,  with  a  movement  uncontrollable,  she 
hid  her  own  eyes  for  a  moment.  But  Lady  Dover  again  came 
to  the  rescue. 

"  Ah,  Doctor  Inglis  won't  allow  that,  Mr.  Dundas,"  she 
said. 

But  Evelyn  still  held  them  away  from  his  face.  Brutal  as 
it  all  was,  the  thing  had  to  be  gone  through  once,  and  it  was 
on  the  whole  better  to  do  it  now. 

"  Ah,  I  asked  Madge,"  he  said  quietly. 
As  he  spoke,  with  his  other  hand  he  let  his  fingers  dwell 
with  that  firm  yet  fluttering  movement  over  his  eyes.  That 
straight,  drawn-down  lid  was  visualised  by  him,  that  tear  in 
the  other  eyelid  was  visualised  also.  Then  the  hovering 
finger-tips  traced  the  course  of  the  pellet  through  the  eye- 
brow, and  felt,  like  a  dog  nosing  a  hot  scent,  the  course  of 
the  scar  where  another  had  crossed  his  forehead.  To  that 
constructive  touch  the  truth  was  becoming  hideously  plain. 
And  deliberately,  as  he  felt  and  traced,  he  set  himself  to  be- 
lieve the  worst.  He  sat  as  judge  to  weigh  the  evidence  of  his 
fingers  as  they  bore  witness  to  the  state  of  this  wrecked  face 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  345 

of  his.  Again  and  again,  in  days  past,  he  had  said,  and 
meant  also,  that  he  did  not  wish  to  go  below  the  surface  of 
things ;  the  eyebrow,  the  curve  of  the  mouth,  the  light  of  the 
eye  itself,  as  he  had  said  to  the  Hermit,  were  enough  for  him, 
there  was  symbol  enough  there.  And  since  this  choice  was 
so  instinctive  and  natural  to  himself,  it  was  not  possible  to 
him  to  dissociate  others  from  it,  and  as,  with  terrible  cer- 
tainty, he  framed  to  himself  what  he  looked  like,  he  put  him- 
self into  Madge's  place,  and  seeing  with  her  eyes,  framed 
also  the  conclusion  which  he  believed  to  be  inevitable.  Yet 
she  had  seen  him  before,  the  nurse  had  told  him  so,  and  after 
that  he  had  heard  with  ears  that  somehow  seemed  quickened 
in  their  sense  even  as  touch  was,  the  authentic  ring  of  love 
in  her  voice.  Or  had  he  been  deceived  in  that  ? 

But  thought,  like  the  electric  current  through  wires,  trav- 
els many  miles  in  an  interval  that  is  not  appreciably  greater 
than  that  which  it  takes  to  go  a  yard  or  two,  and  the  rapid 
brushing  of  his  fingers  over  his  face  had  been  almost  as 
speedy.  So  when  Madge  answered  (her  thought  too  had 
gone  far)  he  was  not  conscious  that  there  had  been  a  pause. 
She  had  complete  command  of  her  voice  now. 

"  How  can  anybody  be  so  silly  ?"  she  said.  "  I  like  you 
best  without  spectacles,  dear,  but  as  you  have  to  wear  them, 
there's  the  end  of  it.  And  " — she  was  embarked  on  a  big 
lie,  and  did  not  mind — "  you  look  so  much  better  than  you 
did  when  I  saw  you  a  week  ago  when  your  face  was  being 
dressed,  that  I  should  scarcely  recognise  you.  At  least  I 
feel  now  as  if  I  should  scarcely  have  recognised  you  then; 
now  there  is  no  need  for  recognition.  Put  them  on  again, 
Evelyn ;  there  is  a  strong  light." 

She  gave  a  little  gasp  at  the  end  of  this.  Lady  Dover 
heard  it,  and  laid  a  quick  hand  of  sympathy  on  her  shoulder. 
But  Evelyn  did  not;  for  the  present  he  was  convinced,  and 
that  conviction,  like  some  burst  of  sudden  sound,  shut  out 
all  other  impressions. 

"  Here  we  are,  then,"  he  said.  "  This  is  the  new  me ;  posi- 
tively the  first  appearance.  A  favourable  reception  was 
accorded  by  a  sympathetic  audience.  And  now — are  you 
still  there,  Dr.  Inglis  ? — what  manner  of  reason  is  there  that 
I  should  not  get  up?" 

"  You  want  to  ?"  he  asked. 

"  Why,  certainly." 


346  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"Then,  there  is  an  excellent  reason  why  you  should. 
When  my  patients  want  to  do  a  thing  it  is  an  indication, 
generally  correct,  that  it  is  good  for  them.  Yes,  get  up  by 
all  means." 

Again  the  boyish  delight  in  the  new  game  took  possession 
of  Evelyn ;  yet  that  delight,  and  the  pity  of  it,  stabbed  Madge 
like  a  sword. 

"  And  let  me  do  it  myself,"  he  cried.  "  Let  my  clothes 
be  put  by  my  bed,  let  my  bath  be  put  there,  and  let  me  be  left 
quite  alone.  Madge,  I  bet  you  I  shall  be  dressed  in  an  hour. 
And  the  parting  in  my  hair  will  be  straight,"  he  added  ex- 
citedly. 

This  also  was  agreed  to,  with  the  provision  that  if  he  felt 
faint  or  tired  during  these  operations  he  was  at  once  to 
desist,  and  lie  down  again  and  ring  his  bell.  The  nurse 
busied  herself  with  the  preparations  for  this  great  event, 
and  the  other  three  went  out  together. 

Dr.  Inglis  paused  in  the  corridor  outside  the  room. 

"  Mrs.  Dundas,"  he  said,  "  you  have  got  to  keep  that  up, 
you  know.  You  did  it  well,  and  I  don't  think  you  ought  to 
have  done  differently.  Come,  come,  we  shall  have  you 
fainting  next." 

Poor  Madge  had  been  utterly  overwrought  by  this  scene, 
and  indeed  as  the  doctor  spoke  she  swayed  and  staggered 
where  she  stood.  But  they  got  her  to  a  chair,  in  which  she 
sat  silent  with  closed  eyes  for  a  minute  or  so.  Then  she 
looked  up  at  him. 

"  Shall  I  get  used  to  it?"  she  asked.  "  Please  tell  me  if 
there  is  a  reasonable  chance  of  that?" 

"  Certainly  there  is — we  will  come  down  in  a  minute,  Lady 
Dover,  if  you  will  go  on — yes,  certainly,  there  is  much  more 
than  a  chance.  You  will  get  used  to  it.  I  did  not  know, 
by  the  way,  that  your  husband  had  been  told  you  had  seen 
him  before ;  but  that  does  not  matter  now.  But  it  is  idle 
to  pretend  that  you  will  get  used  to  it  at  once.  You  wont, 
you  can't.  You  will  have  to  be  patient,  and  all  the  time  you 
must  keep  the  strictest  guard  on  yourself,  to  prevent  the 
least  suspicion  getting  to  his  mind  that  you  are  shocked  by 
his  appearance.  He  knows,  poor  fellow,  more  or  less  what 
he  looks  like.  The  curious  blind  sense  of  touch  is  develop- 
ing in  him  with  extraordinary  rapidity.  But  you  convinced 
him  just  now — his  whole  face  flushed — that  you  don't  mind. 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  347 

You  must  keep  that  up,  otherwise  no  one  can  say  what  may 
happen." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?"  asked  she,  still  rather  faintly. 

"  Just  that.  His  hold  on  life  is  strong  enough,  quite 
strong  enough,  but  it  comes  to  him  now  mainly  through  one 
channel.  That  is  you." 

The  rather  cruel  abruptness  of  this  was  intentional  and 
well  calculated.  It  did  not  dismay  Madge,  but  just  braced 
her.  She  got  up  from  the  chair. 

"  That  will  be  all  right,  then,"  she  said. 

"  I  am  sure  it  will.  But  as  I  shall  go  away  to-day,  I 
want  to  say  a  little  more  to  you.  His  recovery,  his  recuper- 
ative power,  is  excellent,  but  there  is  one  thing  which  I  do 
not  altogether  like.  His  moods  vary  with  great  rapidity  and 
great  intensity.  No  doubt  that  was  always  so  to  some 
extent  with  him." 

"  Yes,"  said  Madge  eagerly,  "  it  is  just  that  which  is  so 
like  him.  Surely  that  is  all  for  the  good,  that  he  should  be 
so  like  himself?" 

"  Yes,  within  limits.  But,  as  I  need  not  tell  you,  he  has 
been  through  a  frightful  shock,  not  only  physical  but  mental, 
and  quiet  is  the  best  restorative  of  all.  Keep  him  amused 
and  interested  in  things  as  much  as  you  can;  but  also,  as 
far  as  you  can,  keep  him  from  feeling  extravagantly.  His 
mental  barometer  is  jumping  up  and  down ;  in  proportion 
as  it  goes  unnaturally  high,  so  it  will  also  go  unnaturally 
low.  That  is  frightfully  tiring ;  it  is  to  the  mind  what  fever, 
a  temperature  that  jumps  about,  is  to  the  body." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"  Of  course  I  know  the  difficulties,"  he  went  on.  "  It  is 
no  use  saying  *  Be  tranquil,'  but  you  can  certainly  induce 
tranquility  in  him  by  being  tranquil  yourself,  by  surround- 
ing him  with  tranquility.  Keep  his  spirits  level  by  keeping 
your  own  level.  It  won't  be  easy.  Now,  if  you  are  quite 
yourself  again,  shall  we  join  Lady  Dover?" 

Evelyn  spent  several  hours  that  afternoon  downstairs, 
but  the  excitement  of  coming  down  for  the  first  time  tired 
him.  and  before  Philip's  arrival  he  had  gone  up  to  bed  again. 
All  day,  too,  to  Madge's  great  disquietude,  his  spirits  had 
been  jumping  up  and  down;  at  one  time  he  would  go  on 
with  the  identification  game  with  the  most  absorbed  enthu- 


348  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

siasm;  then  again,  even  in  the  middle  of  it,  he  would  sud- 
denly stop. 

"  Oh,  it's  no  use,"  he  said.  "  Why,  it  takes  me  half  an 
hour  to  find  out  what  is  on  that  table,  and  it  would  take  me 
a  week  to  find  out  what  the  room  was  like.  Take  me  on  to 
the  terrace,  will  you,  Madge,  and  let  me  walk  up  and  down 
a  bit." 

This  had  been  medically  permitted,  and  with  his  arm  in 
hers  they  strolled  up  and  down  in  the  warm  sunlight. 
Evelyn  sniffed  the  fresh  air  with  extraordinary  gusto. 

"  Ah,  that's  good,"  he  said ;  "  it  is  warm,  yet  it  has  got 
the  touch  of  autumn  in  it.  What  sort  of  a  day  is  it,  Madge  ? 
Is  it  a  blue  day  or  a  yellow  day? 

"  Well,  the  sky  is  blue "  she  began. 

"  Yes,  I  didn't  suppose  it  was  yellow,"  said  he.  "  But 
what's  the  rest?  Is  the  air  between  us  and  the  hills  yellow 
or  blue?  Oh,  Lord,  what  would  I  not  give  for  one  more 
sight  of  it!  I  would  look  so  carefully  just  this  once.  Tell 
me  about  it,  dear." 

So  Madge,  as  well  as  she  could,  tried  to  make  him  see 
with  her  eyes.  She  told  him  of  the  brown,  foam-flecked 
stream  that  wound  and  crawled  in  the  shadowed  gully  below 
them,  of  the  steep  hillside  opposite,  that  climbed  out  of  the 
darkness  into  the  broad,  big  sunlight  of  the  afternoon,  of 
the  feathery  birch  trees,  just  beginning  to  turn  yellow,  that 
fringed  the  moor,  of  the  bracken,  a  tone  deeper  in  gold,  of 
the  warm  greyness  of  the  bare  hill  above,  with  its  corries 
lying  in  shadow,  and  its  topmost  serrated  outline  cutting 
the  sky  with  so  clear  and  well-defined  a  line  that  the  sky 
itself  looked  as  if  it  was  applique,  fitted  on  to  it.  Away  to 
the  left  was  a  pine  wood,  almost  black  as  contrasted  with 
the  golden  of  the  bracken,  but  the  red  trunks  of  the  trees 
burned  like  flames  in  it.  Beyond  that  again  lay  the  big 
purple  stretches  of  heather  over  which  ran  the  riband  of 
the  road  to  Golspie.  Then  in  the  immediate  foreground 
there  was  a  clump  of  rowan  trees,  covered  with  red  berries ; 
they  found  but  a  precarious  footing,  so  steeply  did  the 
ground  plunge  towards  the  river;  but  halfway  down  there 
was  a  broad,  almost  level  plateau,  across  which  flowed  the 
burn.  It  was  covered  with  grass  and  low  bushes,  bog- 
myrtle,  she  thought,  and  a  big  flock  of  sheep  were  feeding 
there.  The  shepherd  had  just  sent  the  collie  to  fetch  them 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  349 

up,  and  the  running  dog  was  like  a  yellow  streak  across  the 
green. 

Evelyn  gave  a  great  sigh. 

"  Thanks,  dear,"  he  said.  "  Now  shall  we  go  in  ?  Some- 
how, I  don't  think  I  can  stand  any  more  just  yet.  I  suppose 
one  will  get  more  used  to  it.  Ah,  how  unfair,  how  damnably 
unfair !"  he  cried  suddenly.  "  Why  should  I  be  robbed  like 
this  ?  I  wish  to  God  I  had  been  born  blind,  so  that  I  could 
never  know  how  much  I  miss.  But  to  give  me  sight,  to 
give  me  a  glimpse  of  the  world,  just  to  take  it  away  again ! 
How  can  that  be  just?  And  I  did  like  it  so.  It  was  all  so 
pleasant !" 

Never  before  had  Madge  so  felt  the  utter  uselessness  of 
words.  How  could  words  be  made  to  reach  him  ?  Yet  how, 
again,  could  the  yearning  of  her  whole  soul  to  console  and 
comfort  him  fail  to  reach  him?  What  she  said  she  hardly 
knew ;  she  was  but  conscious  of  the  outpourings  of  herself 
in  pity  and  love.  She  held  that  poor  blind  head  in  her  hands, 
she  kissed  the  mouth,  she  kissed  the  scars,  she  pushed  up' 
the  dark  spectacles  and  kissed  the  dear,  empty  eyelids,  and 
all  the  horror  that  had  involuntarily  made  her  shudder  when 
first  she  saw  his  face  was  gone,  melted,  vanished.  For  it 
had  been  but  a  superficial  thing,  as  little  her  true  self,  as 
little  to  be  taken  as  an  index  of  what  her  heart  felt,  as  the 
sudden  shudder  of  goose-flesh,  and  just  now  at  any  rate 
it  was  swept  away.  That  she  would  feel  it  again,  often  and 
often,  she  did  not  doubt,  but  of  that  she  took  no  heed  what- 
ever. This — this  pity  and  love — which  had  come  upon  her 
like  a  flash  of  revelation — was  her  true  and  her  best  self, 
and  though  again  and  again  she  might  fall  back  from  it, 
her  flesh  wincing  and  being  afraid,  yet  there  would  be 
always  the  memory  of  this  moment  to  guide  and  direct  her. 
There  would  be  difficult  times ;  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  her 
life  would  be  difficult,  but  it  no  longer  presented  the  appear- 
ance of  impossibility.  And  how  full  and  dear  to  her  heart 
was  Evelyn's  response. 

"  Oh,  Madge,"  he  said,  "  the  worst  of  all  was  the  thought 
that  you  would  shrink  from  me.  I  minded  that  so  much 
more  than  anything.  I  should  not  have  reproached  you,  I 
don't  think  I  should  have  done  that  even  to  myself,  after 
guessing,  as  I  have  guessed,  what  I  must  be  like,  for  I  should 
have  understood.  But  what  I  don't  understand  is  how  it  is 


350  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

you  do  not  shrink.  I  don't  want  to  understand,  either;  it 
is  quite  enough  for  me  that  it  is  so.  And  when  I  am  cross, 
as  I  shall  be,  and  despondent,  as  I  shall  be,  and  odious,  try 
to  remember  what  I  have  said  to  you  now.  I  want  to  be 
remembered  by  that." 

So  that  was  his  best  moment,  too. 


Philip  arrived  by  the  dinner  train  that  night  with  a  couple 
of  other  guests,  and  when  the  rest  of  them  went  up  at  the 
usual  early  hour,  to  get  a  good  night  after  the  journey  of 
the  day  in  the  fresh  air,  he  and  Madge  lingered  behind,  for 
naturally  he  wanted  to  learn  about  Evelyn  and  also  about 
her.  Both  also  perhaps  felt  that  it  was  inevitable  that  they 
should  have  one  talk  together;  it  could  hardly  have  been 
otherwise. 

It  began  abruptly  enough.  As  soon  as  the  door  was  shut 
behind  the  last  of  the  outgoers  she  came  towards  him  with 
hands  outstretched. 

"  I  know  you  don't  want  me  to  say  '  thank  you,'  Philip," 
she  said,  "  but  I  can't  help  it.  I  can't  tell  you  how  deeply 
I  thank  you." 

He  held  her  hands  for  a  moment,  pressing  them  closely, 
and  smiling  at  her. 

"  It  is  said,  then.  You  mustn't  say  it  twice,  you  know. 
That  it  vain  repetition,  and  we  have  so  much  to  say  to  each 
other  that  we  have  no  time  for  that.  I  also  must  say  once 
that  I  thank  you  for  letting  me  do  what  I  can.  It  would 
have  been  easier  for  you  to  have  refused  my  help  and  to 
have  refused  to  see  me.  Also  it  would  have  been  more  con- 
ventional. Now,  about  that  there  is  just  one  word  more 
to  be  said,  and  it  is  this.  You  told  me  once  you  looked  upon 
me  as  an  elder  brother.  Well,  you  have  got  to  do  it  again. 
I'm  going  to  manage  for  you.  You  have  got,  you  and 
Evelyn,  to  do  as  I  tell  you  in  practical  matters,  because  I'm 
practical  and  you  are  not." 

A  great  lump  rose  in  Madge's  throat.  These  days  had 
tired  her  so ;  it  was  such  an  unutterable  relief  to  have  any- 
thing taken  off  her  hands,  to  feel  that  the  almost  intolerable 
weight  of  the  future  was  being  shared  by  another.  But  for 
the  moment  she  could  not  speak,  and  but  just  nodded  to  him. 

"  Now,  I  am  the  bearer  of  a  message  first  of  all,"  he 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  351 

said,  "  and  the  message  is  from  my  mother.  She  wants  you 
both — in  fact,  she  insists  on  your  coming  down  to  Pang- 
bourne  for — for  a  period  which  she  says  had  better  be  left 
indefinite.  London,  she  truly  says,  is  dust  and  ashes  in 
September.  It  really  would  be  the  best  plan,  so  will  you 
join  with  me  in  persuading  Evelyn,  if  persuasion  is  neces- 


sary 


Ah,  Philip,"  she  said,  "  you  cut  me  to  the  heart.  And 
— and  this  makes  it  worse,  that  I  accept  your  generosity  for 
Evelyn's  sake.  It  is  that  which — which  is  so  ruthless." 

Philip's  lip  quivered  a  moment,  but  he  went  on  bravely. 

"  Well,  as  an  elder  brother  I  recommend  it,  too,"  he  said  ; 
"  for  it  is  just  that  I  want  to  be  to  you,  dear.  Ah,  do  you 
think  I  don't  guess  ?" 

Madge  got  up,  and  drew  a  chair  close  to  him. 

"  Tell  me  about  yourself,  if  it  does  not  hurt  you  to  talk 
of  that,"  she  said. 

"  No,  I  want  you  to  know  what  has  happened  to  me,"  he 
said ;  "  both  because  I  have  to  ask  your  forgiveness  for  cer- 
tain things " 

"  Ah,  don't,  don't !"  said  she. 

"  Yes,  you  will  see,  and  because  perhaps  what  I  have  been 
through  may  help  you.  Well,  Madge,  I  have  been  through 
deep  waters,  and  waters  as  bitter  as  they  were  deep.  For 
that  month  while  I  was  in  London  I  hated  you  and  I  hated 
him  with  such  intensity  that  I  think,  but  for  the  very  hard 
work  I  did,  I  must  have  gone  mad.  And  I  think  the  only 
pleasure  I  felt  was  when  I  was  the  cause — indirectly  any- 
how— of  his  losing  a  large  sum  of  money.  I  could  have 
saved  him  that  if  I  chose,  but  I  did  not  choose.  I  must 
speak  of  that  afterwards.  But  I  loved  you  all  the  time  I 
hated  you,  Madge,  if  you  can  understand  that.  All  that 
was  base  and  hard  in  me  loathed  you,  because  you  had  made 
me  suffer;  but  there  was  something  below,  a  very  little 
thing,  like  a  lump  of  leaven  perhaps  which  still  loved  you, 
my  infinitesimal  better  self.  But  all  the  time  in  London  I 
did  not  know  there  was  in  me  anything  better  than  this 
worst. 

"  Then  one  morning  I  fainted,  and  they  told  me  to  ease 
off.  So  I  went  down  into  the  country  and  stayed  with  the 
Hermit,  who,  I  think,  lived  the  happiest  life  that  was  ever 
lived  on  this  earth.  It  was  the  contrast  between  him  and 


352  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

me  perhaps  that  first  suggested  to  me  whether  it  was  worth 
while  to  hate,  as  I  was  hating,  for  that  as  far  as  I  know 
was  the  beginning  of  what  happened  afterwards.  It  made 
me  also  throw  away  something  I  had  bought  in  order  to 
kill  myself — never  mind  that.  Then  one  night  he  talked 
about  pain,  on  which  he  had  turned  his  back,  and  told  me 
that  though  he  could  not  understand  how  or  why  it  was 
necessary,  it  perhaps  might  be,  and  that  he  was  willing  him- 
self, if  so,  to  face  anything  that  might  be  in  store  for  him. 
And  then,  I  must  suppose  that  little  lump  of  leaven  began 
to  work,  because  that  night — we  had  talked  also  about  free 
will — I  asked  myself  if  I  chose,  deliberately  chose,  to  be 
bitter  and  hating.  And  I  found  I  did  not. 

"  It  was  not  long  after  that — a  week,  I  suppose — that  the 
end  came.  By  then  I  knew  but  this  for  certain,  that  I  was 
not  deliberately  hard  any  longer.  It  was  the  contemplation 
of  happiness  and  serenity  that  had  produced  that;  I  had 
begun  also  not  to  stare  at  a  blank  wall  that  had  seemed  to 
face  me,  but  to  say  to  myself  that  there  was  no  wall  except 
that  of  my  own  making.  Do  you  know  Watts'  picture  of 
Hope  ?  Of  course  you  <do.  Well,  I  thought  all  my  strings 
were  broken,  but  they  were  not.  There  was  just  one  left. 
But  that  I  knew  must  inevitably  break  if  I  continued  to  be 
black  and  bitter.  My  bitterness  had  corroded  it  already." 

Philip  paused  a  moment. 

"  I  am  jawing  dreadfully  about  myself,"  he  said. 

"  Go  on,"  said  she. 

"  Tom  died  in  the  night.  I  don't  want  to  tell  you  that 
in  detail,  but  he  died  because  he  saw  or  thought  he  saw 
some  revelation  of  the  pain  and  sorrow  of  the  world. 
Whether  he  imagined  it  or  not,  and  whether  what  I  thought 
I  saw  was  imagination  only,  I  don't  really  care.  He  was 
sleeping  in  a  hammock  out  of  doors,  and  suddenly  his  cry 
rent  the  night.  He  called  on  God  and  on  Christ.  And 
when  I  went  out  I  thought  I  saw  a  shadow  like  some  dread- 
ful goat  skip  from  him.  And  he  was  dead. 

"  Now,  how  one  learns  anything  I  don't  know.  But  what 
I  learned  was  pity  for  sorrow.  And  so,  dear  Madge,  I  am 
here." 

Again  her  hand  sought  his. 

"  Oh,  Philip,  Philip,"  she  said.    "  What  can  I  say  to  you? 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  353 

How  could  I  guess  what  love  was  till  I  felt  it?    Ah,  I  don't 
say  that  in  excuse — you  know  that." 

"  No,  dear.  It  is  no  question  of  excuses,  of  course.  And 
I  have  only  told  you  all  this  that  you  may  never  need  to  look 
for  any,  and  that  you  may  understand  that  I  am  sorry  for 
having  been  so  bitter.  And  if  you  forgive  that " — and  the 
pressure  of  her  hand  answered  him — "  let  us  leave  the  past 
forever  behind  us,  and  look  forward  only.  But  it  was 
better  to  have  talked  of  it  just  once,  so  that  we  may  dismiss 
it.  Now,  tell  me  about  Evelyn." 

To  Philip  somehow  she  could  pour  out  her  heart  in  a  way 
she  could  scarcely  have  done  to  anyone  else,  for  the  knowl- 
edge of  what  he  had  been  through  and  of  the  bitterness 
from  which  he  had  emerged  so  unembittered  threw  open 
the  golden  gates  of  sympathy,  and  she  spoke  without 
reserve.  She  told  him  of  the  myriad  dangers  and  difficulties 
that  faced  them,  of  the  loss  Evelyn  had  sustained  which 
she  could  not  yet  estimate,  which  he,  too,  was  only  just 
beginning  to  realise,  and  which  for  a  long  time  yet  to  come 
must  daily  grow  more  real  to  him.  She  spoke  quite  frankly, 
yet  never  without  the  utter  sinking  of  herself,  which  is 
love,  of  his  moods  and  transitions  from  boyish  cheerful- 
ness to  a  sort  of  dumb  despair.  She  spoke  finally  of  her 
first  mortal  horror  when  she  saw  his  face,  and  her  dread 
lest  that  should  suddenly  overmaster  her,  so  that  she  should 
shrink  from  him  and  he  should  see  it. 

"  But  it  is  he,"  she  said,  "  whom  I  tremble  for.  He  can 
stand  it  to-day,  he  will  be  able  to  stand  it  to-morrow,  and 
for  a  week  perhaps,  or  a  month.  But  will  it  get  easier  for 
him  to  bear  or  more  difficult?  He  can't  stand  much  more. 
He  will  break." 

"Ah,  you  mustn't  think  about  that,"  said  Philip.  "It 
is  no  use  adding  up  the  sorrow  and  the  pain  that  may  be 
in  front  of  one.  One  is  meant  just  to  bear  the  burden  of 
the  moment,  and,  God  knows,  it  is  heavy  enough  for  you 
and  him.  Face  difficulties  as  they  arise,  Madge,  don't  make 
a  sum  of  them  and  say  the  total  is  intolerable." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"  And  let  me  bear  all  that  you  can  shift  on  to  me,"  he  said. 
"  Because  otherwise,  you  see,  my  coming  here  will  be  pur- 
poseless. And  I  hate,  being  a  practical  person,  doing  use- 
less things." 


TWENTY-THIRD 


x**»— *^T  was  a  dismally  wet  afternoon  some  weeks  later, 
and  Evelyn  was  sitting  in  one  of  the  deep  window- 
seats  in  the  drawing-room  of  Philip's  house  above 
*^  "*  Pangbourne,  which  looked  out  on  to  the  terrace, 
where  only  six.  months  ago  the  nightingale  had  sat  and 
sung  on  Tom  Merivale's  finger.  Below,  communicating 
with  the  upper  terrace  by  a  flight  of  stone  steps,  was  the 
bedless  square  of  grass,  below  again  the  rose  garden,  from 
which  the  ground  went  steeply  down  to  the  river.  He  had 
occupied  himself  with  closing  the  shutters  of  this  row  of 
windows,  one  of  which,  reaching  down  to  the  ground,  com- 
municated with  the  terrace,  and,  not  satisfied  with  this,  he 
had  drawn  the  curtains  over  them,  leaving  the  room  in 
darkness.  The  window-seats  were  well  cushioned,  and  hav- 
ing arrived  at  the  last,  he  slipped  between  the  curtains  he 
had  drawn  and  curled  himself  up  in  it.  During  this  last 
month  he  had  made,  so  everybody  said,  extraordinary 
progress;  he  could  already  read  a  little,  fast  enough,  that 
is  to  say,  to  enable  him  to  remember  the  sentences  he  spelled 
out  with  his  fingers  in  the  raised  type;  he  could  remember 
the  cards  in  his  hand  sufficiently  to  enable  him  to  play  a 
game  of  bridge,  and  with  a  stick  to  feel  his  way  he  could 
walk  alone.  But  none,  except  he,  knew  the  dreadful  progress 
which  despair  had  made  in  his  mind.  He  had  begun  to  be 
able  once  to  look  forward,  to  frame  the  future ;  but  now  the 
future  was  unframeable,  he  was  only  able  just  to  bear  the 
present  moment.  Soon  that  might  be  unbearable,  too. 

For  a  week  now  this  dull  weight,  starting  from  a  definite 
moment,  had  been  gaining  on  him,  for  a  week  ago  he  had 
gone  with  Philip  to  the  lodge,  and  the  four-year-old  child 
of  the  lodge-keeper  had  come  out  with  his  father.  Evelyn, 
sitting  down  and  waiting  while  Philip  spoke  to  him,  had 
called  the  child,  who  toddled  up  to  him,  and  then,  when  he 
got  close,  burst  into  shrieks  of  frightened  dismay.  Evelyn 
354 


THE    ANGEL    OF   PAIN  355 

had  understood,  and  he  said  nothing  about  it  to  anyone. 
But  he  put  the  fact  away  in  his  mind,  and  when  he  was 
alone  he  took  it  out  and  looked  at  it. 

At  this  moment  he  was  alone  in  the  house.  Mrs.  Home 
was  spending  a  few  days  in  London,  Philip  would  soon  be 
due  by  the  evening  train,  and  Madge  was  out,  doing  some 
small  businesses  in  Pangbourne.  She  had  been  unwilling 
to  leave  him,  but  he  had  made  it  unmistakably  and  ill- 
temperedly  clear  he  would  sooner  be  left.  He  thought 
with  a  dull  wonder  at  himself  of  the  fact  that  he  could 
have  been  cross  with  her.  It  had  happened  often  before, 
and  in  spite  of  its  recurrence  he  never  got  used  to  it.  It 
always  seemed  strange  to  him.  And  with  a  wonder  that 
was  almost  incredulous,  he  thought  how  he  had  behaved 
to  her  to-day.  For  she  had  come  to  him  with  a  word  which 
a  man  can  only  hear  once,  to  whisper  which  a  woman  nestles 
close  to  him,  pouring  out  her  very  soul  in  the  joy  of  know- 
ing that  she  will  some  day  put  into  his  arms  her  first-born 
child.  That  Madge  had  told  him,  but  he  felt  nothing ;  it  did 
not  reach  him,  neither  joy  for  her  nor  for  himself  seemed 
any  longer  capable  of  being  felt,  and  he  had  said  only,  "  I 
shall  never  see  it."  He  was  thinking  about  that  now,  if  this 
leaden  contemplation  of  facts  could  be  called  thought,  of 
that  and  of  the  child  that  had  cried  when  it  saw  his  face. 
Over  that  face  he  passed  his  sensitive  fingers. 

"  I'm  sure  I  don't  wonder,"  he  said  to  himself. 


The  door  opened  once  as  he  lay  in  this  window-seat,  and 
correctly  and  mechanically  he  pictured  what  was  going  on. 
Only  one  person  entered ;  that  he  could  tell  by  the  footfalls, 
and  that  one  person  whistled  gently  to  himself.  He  paused 
by  the  table,  then  went  to  the  door  again,  and  again  re-en- 
tered and  paused  by  another.  Then  he  poked  the  fire  and 
swept  up  the  grate.  Clearly  the  footman  making  the  room 
ready,  and  he  banged  the  door  as  he  went  out. 

Now  if  that  child  had  cried  at  the  sight  of  his  face,  what 
must  it  be  to  others?  Surely  they  would  cry  too  if  they 
obeyed  their  natural  impulse,  either  cry  or  turn  away,  in  pity, 
no  doubt,  but  also  in  repulsion.  It  must  be  an  effort  to  every- 
body to  look  at  him,  to  be  with  him.  And  Madge  was  with 
him  so  much ;  she  kissed  him,  she  let  him  kiss  her ;  she  was 


356  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

his  wife,  the  wife  of  this  man  with  the  nightmare  face  at 
which  a  child  cried  out  as  if  it  saw  bogey.  Philip  had  been 
quick  and  ready  on  that  occasion,  had  said  the  child  was 
teething,  and  wrung  corroboration  from  the  father.  But  he 
had  answered,  "  Yes,  it  teeths  when  it  sees  me,"  and  Philip 
was  not  ready  enough  for  that. 

The  crying  child  explained  other  things  too;  for  Mrs. 
Home  had  cried  when  she  saw  him ;  he  could  hear  from  her 
voice  that  she  was  crying,  there  were  sobs  in  it.  He  had 
thought  then  that  it  was  from  pity  merely  and  sympathy,  but 
he  told  himself  now  that  it  was  not  so ;  she  cried  from  horror 
at  him.  All  his  life  he  had  hated  ugly  things,  and  now  it 
would  be  hard  to  match  himself  in  that  abhorred  category. 


The  very  kindness,  too,  and  pity  which  he  knew  surround- 
ed him  were  scarcely  more  bearable.  He  did  not  want  to  be 
pitied,  he  would  sooner  be  left  to  drag  out  a  lonely,  shunned 
life  than  to  be  surrounded  with  pity ;  while  with  regard  to 
kindness,  the  knowledge  that  he  and  Madge  were  frankly 
living  on  Philip  became  harder  every  day  to  swallow.  Philip 
certainly  had  done  all  he  could  to  minimise  the  burden  of 
that;  he  had,  soi-disant,  bought  the  unfinished  picture  of 
himself,  declaring  that  no  finished  picture  could  possibly  be 
so  like  him ;  he  had  bought,  too,  after  argument,  the  picture 
of  Madge.  The  proceeds  he  had  invested  for  Evelyn,  prom- 
ising since  he  had  advised  him  so  ill  before  to  take  greater 
care  this  time,  and  twice  during  this  last  month  he  had  re- 
ported substantial  profits  from  the  investments  he  had  made 
for  him,  so  that  if  he  insisted,  as  he  did  insist,  on  paying  the 
bills  for  his  nurse  and  doctor,  he  still  could  run  up  to  London 
whenever  he  pleased  if  Pangbourne  bored  him.  With  luck, 
too,  and  care  his  investments  would  grow  fatter  yet. 

On  this  occasion  Evelyn  had  broken  out. 

"  Ah,  I  can't  stand  it,"  he  cried.  "  I  can't  go  on  living 
here,  Madge  and  I,  indefinitely.  Yes,  I  know  how  kind  you 
are,  both  you  and  your  mother,  and  how  you  would  be 
pleased — really  pleased — for  us  to  stop  forever,  but  can't 
you  see  how  impossible  it  is  for  me  to  accept  your  hospital- 
ity like  that  ?  I  must,  I  simply  must,  pay  my  way,  earn  some- 
thing, work  and  get  tired,  if  only  for  the  distraction  of  it. 
A  barrel-organ,  now.  '  Totally  blind.  Ky-ind  Gentleman !' 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  357 

That  would  be  more  self-respecting  than  to  sit  here  and  do 
nothing.  It's  better  to  beg  in  the  streets  than  to  accept  alms 
without  begging  for  them.  That's  why  the  poor  have  such 
a  horror  of  the  workhouse.  They  would  sooner  be  cold  and 
hungry,  and  so  would  I." 

He  was  silent  a  moment  after  this. 

"  I  suppose  I  needn't  have  said  all  that,"  he  observed  drear- 
ily. "  However,  it  doesn't  much  matter  what  I  say." 

Philip  had  a  horror  of  improving  the  occasion,  but  he 
could  hardly  let  such  a  chance  of  a  word  in  season  slip.  He 
was,  too,  keenly  wounded  by  this. 

"  You  don't  recollect,  my  dear  fellow,"  he  said,  "  that  we 
are  all  doing  our  best,  and  that  it  is  hard  not  to  be  hurt  by 
words  like  those." 

"  Oh,  for  God's  sake  don't  preach,"  cried  Evelyn. 

Philip  flushed  for  a  moment  rather  angrily,  but  re-col- 
lected himself. 

"  Indeed,  I  hope  not,"  he  said  with  a  laugh.  "  Now  are 
you  ready  to  give  me  my  revenge  at  picquet  ?" 


It  was  quite  dark  behind  the  curtains,  though  to  Evelyn, 
who  lay  there,  whatever  the  light  was,  it  would  have  been 
dark  in  any  case,  and  in  a  grosser  darkness  than  that,  a  dark- 
ness of  despair  unilluminable  by  any  sun,  he  pondered  these 
things,  his  own  helplessness,  his  blindness,  the  horror  of  his 
own  face,  and  the  dead  weight  of  his  indebtedness  to  Philip, 
the  one  man  in  all  the  world  whose  charity,  from  the  very 
nature  of  things,  was  most  unbearable.  Together,  poor  fel- 
low they  formed  a  blank  wall  which  it  seemed  hopeless  to 
try  to  scale ;  indeed,  he  no  longer  really  wanted  to  scale  it.  he 
only  wanted  to  be  allowed  to  sit  down  and  have  not  only 
sight,  but  hearing  and  feeling  and  taste  and  smell  closed  for- 
ever, for  death  was  surely  a  thing  far  less  bitter  than  this 
living  death  in  life.  He  could  no  longer  now  look  forward 
to  the  future  at  all ;  it  required  all  his  energies  to  get  through 
the  hour  that  was  present,  without  some  breakdown ;  decent 
behaviour  for  the  moment,  when  he  was  with  any  of  the 
others,  was  the  utmost  he  was  capable  of,  and  even  of  that 
he  often  felt  incapable.  And  his  energies,  such  as  they  were, 
were  gradually  failing  before  the  hourly  task.  He  was  in 
no  sense  beginning  ever  so  slightly  to  get  used  to  it  all,  and 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

the  trials  of  each  day,  so  far  from  making  the  trials  of  the 
next  more  easy  to  contemplate  or  to  bear,  only  weakened  his 
powers  of  bearing  them.  It  was  all  so  hopeless ;  for  him 
hope  was  dead,  and  the  last  chord  of  her  lyre  had  snapped. 

But  he  did  not  feel  this  dully  and  vaguely ;  the  very  vivid- 
ness and  alertness  of  his  nature  which  had  made  life  so  pas- 
sionately sweet  to  him  before  made  his  hopelessness  just  as 
passionately  felt  now.  He,  too,  like  Tom  Merivale,  but  with 
less  of  set  purpose  and  more  of  instinct  in  his  choice,  had 
been  in  love  with  life,  and  that  fire  which  had  gone  out  had 
left  not  mere  grey  ash,  but  something  burningly  cold,  and 
life  was  now  as  actively  terrible  to  him  as  it  had  once  been 
lovely. 


There  was  the  muffled  sound  of  talking  in  the  hall,  and 
next  moment  the  steps  of  two  people  entered,  and  Madge 
spoke.  The  other  step  went  on  towards  the  fireplace. 

"  Evelyn  not  here  ?"  she  said.  "  I  suppose  he's  gone  to  the 
library  for  tea." 

Then  Philip's  voice  spoke. 

"  How  has  he  been  to-day  ?" 

"Ah,  so  bad,  poor  darling!"  she  said.  "Sometimes  I 
almost  despair,  Philip ;  if  it  wasn't  for  you  I  know  I  should. 
Of  course  he  tries  all  he  can,  but  it  seems  almost  as  if  his 
powers  of  trying  were  failing.  It  makes  me  utterly  misera- 
ble to  think  of  him." 

Evelyn  did  not  move  nor  reveal  his  presence  in  any  way. 
He  felt  as  if  the  speaker  was  but  being  the  echo  of  his  own 
thoughts.  Philip  said  something  sympathetic  in  tone,  but 
he  did  not  catch  that ;  he  wanted  only  to  hear  how  far  Madge 
agreed  with  himself. 

"  And  I  dread  his  suspecting  more,"  she  went  on.  "  I  so 
often  see  him  feeling  his  face,  as  if  trying  to  picture  it  to 
himself  more  clearly.  And  if  for  a  moment  I  should  break 
down  and  let  him  know — ah,  I  can't  talk  of  it.  Let  us  go  to 
the  library  and  see  if  he  is  there." 

Her  voice  choked  a  little  over  this ;  then  without  more 
•words  they  passed  out  of  the  drawing-room  again,  and  Eve- 
lyn felt  as  if  something  had  snapped  in  his  brain.  He  almost 
wondered  that  they  had  not  heard  it. 

As  soon  as  the  door  had  closed  behind  them  he  got  swiftly 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  359 

and  quietly  up  from  his  seat  and  felt  his  way  to  the  centre 
window,  which  opened  on  to  the  terrace.  He  undid  the  shut- 
ters of  it,  stepped  out,  and  closed  it  behind  him.  He  was 
hardly  conscious  of  any  motive  in  his  action — he  certainly 
had  no  plan  as  to  what  he  should  do  next.  One  overwhelm- 
ing fact  had  become  a  certainty  to  him,  the  fact  contained  in 
Madge's  last  sentence,  and  he  knew  nothing  more  than  that 
he  must  go  away  somewhere,  lose  himself  somehow,  do  any- 
thing rather  than  go  back  to  her,  to  be  pitied,  to  be  secretly 
shuddered  at,  to  be  a  daily,  hourly  fear  to  her.  Indeed,  he 
would  never  look  upon  their  child. 


It  was  a  cold,  windless  evening,  and  the  rain  descended  in 
a  steady  downpour,  hissing  on  to  the  shrubs,  while  the  gut- 
ters of  the  house  gurgled  and  chuckled.  But  louder  than  the 
rain  and  more  sonorous  was  the  great  rush  and  roar  of  the 
river  below,  as  it  poured  seawards,  swollen  to  a  torrent  of 
flood  from  these  persistent  rains.  And  something  in  the 
strength  and  glory  of  that  deep  voice  called  to  him ;  he  must 
go  down  to  the  river,  for  it  had  something  to  say  to  him. 
Yet  it  was  not  the  river  that  called  to  him,  but  in  some  mys- 
terious way  Tom  Merivale,  whose  jovial,  deep  voice  was 
shouting  to  him  to  come  with  the  authenticity  of  actual  hallu- 
cination. He  hardly  knew  which  it  was ;  he  knew  only  that 
he  could  never  go  back  to  the  house  he  had  just  left,  and 
that  something  called,  with  promise  in  its  voice  of  life,  real 
life,  or  of  death  and  deliverance,  he  knew  not  which. 

He  had  no  stick  to  guide  him,  but  without  hesitation  he 
crossed  the  gravel  of  the  terrace,  and  felt  his  way  along  the 
wall  of  it  to  where  a  stone  vase  stood  at  the  top  of  the  steps 
leading  to  the  lawn  below.  A  purple  clematis  twined  round 
it ;  he  had  made  a  study  of  it  for  a  picture  last  summer.  Then 
came  the  twelve  steps,  the  shuffling  across  the  soaked  grass 
of  the  lawn,  and  a  further  flight  of  twelve  steps  into  the  rose 
garden. 

But  at  the  thought  of  deliverance  of  some  kind  so  close  to 
him,  so  that  he  need  no  more  now  think  of  "  to-morrow  and 
to-morrow,"  and  all  the  impossible  to-morrows,  his  poor 
tired  brain  cleared,  his  myriad  troubles  and  sorrows  seemed 
to  roll  away  from  him,  for  though  the  bitterness  of  death 
was  not  past,  the  bitterness  of  life,  in  comparison  to  which 


360  THE   ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

the  other  was  sweet,  was  over.  So  with  unclouded  mind  and 
soul,  which  no  longer  rebelled  and  resented,  he  thought 
quietly,  as  he  felt  his  way  across  the  rose  garden,  and  struck 
the  steep  path  leading  to  the  river,  of  all  the  past. 

How  wonderful  and  beautiful  life  had  been;  since  his 
earliest  boyish  recollections,  how  full  of  surprising  joys! 
Health  and  vigour  had  been  his,  a  clean,  wholesome  life,  the 
power  of  loving  this  exquisite  world,  an  artistic  gift  that 
had  made  a  daily  Paradise,  and,  above  all,  love  itself,  and 
the  fulfilment  of  love.  Then  had  come  a  crash,  a  break,  but 
how  short  had  been  these  weeks  in  comparison  of  the  rest. 
If  this  was  the  pain  with  which  he  had  to  make  payment  for 
all  his  joy,  how  cheap,  to  look  at  it  fairly,  had  joy  been.  Now 
that  he  knew  that  was  the  full  payment  that  would  be  de- 
manded for  the  joy  he  had  received  in  such  unstinted  abund- 
ance, he  no  longer  complained,  it  was  only  while  the  payment 
seemed  to  be  going  to  be  charged  him  indefinitely,  every  day 
for  years  to  come,  that  he  had  rebelled  and  owned  himselt 
bankrupt.  The  one  eternal  necessity  of  life,  which,  the  mo- 
ment it  ceases  to  brace  begins  to  paralyse,  had  passed  from 
him,  the  necessity  of  going  on  always,  every  day  and  hour, 
having  to  meet  one  difficulty  after  another,  and  without  hope 
of  getting  any  respite,  so  long  as  life  lasts.  For  now  he 
knew  that  some  end  was  very  near. 

He  paused  a  moment  to  brush  his  dripping  hair  back  from 
his  face,  wondering  in  a  sort  of  vague,  uninterested  manner 
whether  something  had  actually  cracked  in  his  brain,  whether 
he  had  gone  mad,  or  so  the  world  could  call  it.  But  whatever 
had  cracked,  it  had  been  the  tension  of  it  which  all  these 
weeks  had  caused  his  misery,  and  in  this  exquisite  moment 
of  peace  that  had  suddenly  come  to  him  he  almost  laughed 
aloud  for  the  unspeakable  relief  which  the  cessation  of  pain 
had  brought.  He  felt  that  up  till  now  his  mental  eyes  had 
been  as  blind  as  his  physical  ones,  that  the  blows  that  had 
been  dealt  him  had  been  dealt  from  the  dark,  so  that  he 
could  not  guess  who  wielded  the  whip.  But  now  they  had 
ceased,  and  the  clouds  of  darkness  were  rolled  away,  and 
there  sat  there  One  with  a  face  full  of  infinite  compassion, 
and  since  none  but  He  was  there,  it  must  have  been  He,  or 
some  ministering  angel  of  pain,  who  at  his  bidding  had  chas- 
tised him  thus.  Then  Evelyn  felt  as  if  he  had  asked  permis- 
sion of  Him  to  go  on,  for  the  river — or  Tom's  voice — still 


THE   ANGEL    OF   PAIN  361 

hailed  him  joyously;  and  since  it  was  allowed,  still  without 
intention,  without  definite  thought  of  any  kind,  he  went  on 
his  way,  with  shuffling  steps  indeed  that  stumbled  over  the 
gravel  of  the  path,  but  with  a  great,  serene  light  shining  on 
him. 

He  had  by  now  come  close  to  the  edge  of  the  river,  and 
the  rain  for  the  moment  had  ceased,  so  that  he  could  hear  the 
suck  and  gurgle  of  the  hurrying  flood-water,  which  whis- 
pered and  chuckled  to  itself.  But  this  rapturous  noise  of 
swift-flowing  water  sounded  but  faintly,  for  a  hundred  yards 
below  was  the  weir.  All  the  sluices  were  raised,  and  tons  of 
water  momently  plunged  through  the  openings,  bellowing 
with  a  great  hoarse  laugh  of  ecstasy  as  they  fell  into  the  pool 
below.  It  was  to  that  place,  somewhere  in  the  middle  of  the 
narrow  pathway  of  planks  that  he  was  called;  it  was  from 
there,  where  he  would  be  surrounded  on  all  sides  with  the 
noise  of  waters,  that  the  voice  of  Tom,  that  faithful  lover  of 
water,  called  him.  That  somehow,  and  he  did  not  question 
how  or  why,  was  his  goal,  nor  did  he  know  whether  life  or 
death  awaited  him  there ;  only  there  was  going  to  be  recon- 
cilement in  some  manner. 

He  had  been  there  many  times  before ;  he  had  been  there, 
indeed,  only  yesterday  to  listen  to  the  splendid  tumult  of 
water.  But  to-day  its  voice  was  redoubled,  and  he  could  feel 
the  mist  from  the  plunging  stream  wet  on  his  face  as  he 
went  slowly  and  cautiously  out  over  the  wet  planks.  Louder 
and  more  triumphantly  every  moment  the  voice  of  the  river 
— or  was  it  Tom  laughing  with  open  mouth,  as  he  used  to 
laugh  when  he  swam  in  the  garden  pool  below  his  cottage  ? — 
called  to  him.  On  both  sides,  before  and  behind,  he  was  sur- 
rounded by  the  joyous  riot  of  waters,  that  filled  and  pos- 
sessed his  brain  till  his  whole  consciousness  was  flooded  with 
it  till  his  voice  too  had  to  join  in  it.  So  he  raised  his  arms, 
spreading  them  out  to  the  night,  and  threw  back  his  head 
with  a  great  shout  of  ecstatic  rapture.  And  as  he  did  this 
his  foot  slipped  on  the  wet  planks,  and  he  fell  into  the  roar- 
ing, rushing  pool  below.  So  the  great  Mother  took  him 
back  to  herself. 


EPILOGUE 


XT  was  just  a  year  later,  a  warm,  mellow  afternoon 
of  mid-October.  For  the  last  few  nights  there  had 
been  an  early  autumn  frost,  though  the  days  were 
almost  like  a  return  of  summer,  and  the  beech- wood 
below  Philip's  house  at  Pangbourne  was  just  beginning  to 
don  its  russet  livery.  The  frost,  too,  had  made  its  mark  r 
blackened  dahlias,  but  the  chrysanthemums  were  still  gor  -- 
ous.  And  on  the  terrace  were  walking  two  figures,  oth 
dressed  in  black,  one  tall,  who  strolled  beside  the  ,cher, 
Madge  and  Mrs.  Home.  The  latter  was  still  as  like  r  Dres- 
den shepherdess  as  ever  in  the  pretty  china  delicacy  of  her 
face,  but  Madge  had  changed  somewhat.  Trouble  had  writ- 
ten its  unmistakable  signs  on  her  face,  but  tenderness  had 
been  at  work  there,  too,  and  though  her  eyes  were  sad,  yet 
with  the  sadness  was  mingled  something  so  sweet  and  gentle 
that  no  one  who  loved  her  would  have  wished  that  the  sad- 
ness should  not  be  there,  if  the  other  had  come  hand-in-hand 
with  it.  And  it  was  hand-in-hand  that  they  had  come  during 
the  last  eighteen  months  of  her  life,  which  had  been  to  her 
of  such  infinitely  greater  import  than  all  the  years  that  had 
gone  before. 

"  Yes,  it  is  even  as  I  tell  you,"  she  was  saying.  "  I  never 
think  of  Evelyn  as  blind.  I  think  of  him — well,  a  good  deal, 
but  he  always  comes  back  to  me,  not  as  he  was  in  those  last 
weeks,  but  in  those  first  few  weeks  before,  bright-eyed — you 
know  how  bright  his  eyes  were — and  full  of  a  sort  of  boyish 
joy  at  this  jolly  world.  No,  I  scarcely  feel  sad  when  I  think 
of  him.  He  was  fragile ;  he  would  have  broken  if  he  had  had 
to  bear  more.  And  I  think  God  knew  that,  and  spared  him 
by  letting  him  die." 

She  walked  on  a  little  without  speaking.     Mrs.  Home's 

hand  on  her  arm  pressed  its  sympathy,  but  she  said  nothing. 

"  I  have  been  allowed  to  forget,  too,"  Madge  went  on,  "  or 

to  remember  it  only  as  a  nightmare  from  which  I  awoke, 

362 


THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN  363 

the  way  I  shrank  from  him,  and  I  only  wonder  now  whether, 
if  he  had  lived,  I  should  have  got  used  to  it.  Ah,  surely  it 
must  have  been  in  a  dream  only  that  I  shrank  from  him." 

"  Yes,  dear,  it  was  only  that,"  said  Mrs.  Home.  "  At 
least,  no  one  knew.  You  behaved  so  that  no  one  guessed." 

"  Philip  knew.  If  it  had  not  been  for  him  during  those 
months  I  think  I  should  have  gone  mad.  And  for  the  second 
time  he  kept  me — it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration — kept  me  sane 
when  baby  died." 

Mrs.  Home,  when  she  had  anything  important  and  diffi- 
cult to  say,  often  gave  out  little  twittering,  mouse-like  noises 
before  she  could  manage  to  speak.  Madge  knew  this,  and 
thus,  hearing  them  now,  waited  for  her  to  overcome  her  em- 
barrassment. 

"  And  is  there  no  hope  for  Philip,  dear  ?"  she  asked  at 
length. 

Madge  had  rather  expected  this  was  coming,  but  her  an- 
swer gave  her  less  embarrassment  than  the  question  had 
caused  his  mother. 

"  I  owe  Philip  everything,"  she  said,  "  and  though  I  don't 
suppose  I  can  ever  love  again  in  the  way  that  I  have  loved, 
still — you  know  once  I  told  him  quite  truthfully  that  I  would 
give  him  all  that  I  was  capable  of.  You  see,  I  did  not  know 
then  what  love  meant.  That  was  a  niggardly  gift  to  offer 
him.  And  now  again  I  can  give  him — oh,  so  gratefully — all 
I  am  capable  of.  It  is,  I  hope,  not  quite  such  a  mean  thing 
as  it  was.  I  think " 

Madge  paused  a  moment. 

"  I  think  sorrow  has  made  me  a  little  more  worthy  of  him," 
she  went  on.  "  It  has  made  me  a  little  more  like  a  woman. 
So  if  he  cares  still " 

"  Ah,  my  dear,  you  say  '  still.'  Why,  day  by  day  he  loves 
you  more." 

Madge  looked  at  Mrs.  Home  a  moment  in  silence,  and  the 
sadness  of  her  eyes  was  melted  into  pure  tenderness. 

"  You  are  sure  ?"  she  said. 

"  He  will  tell  you  better  than  I." 

Madge  gave  a  long  sigh,  then  let  her  gaze  wander  down 
the  steep  path  to  the  river,  which  crossed  the  weir  and 
formed  a  short  cut  through  the  fields  of  Pangbourne.  The 
sun,  which  was  near  to  its  setting,  dazzled  her  a  little,  and 
she  put  up  her  hand  to  shade  her  eyes. 


364  THE    ANGEL    OF    PAIN 

"  Ah,  that  is  he  coming  up  the  path,"  she  said.  "  He  must 
have  caught  the  earlier  train.  Shall  we  go  to  meet  him  ?" 

"  You  go,  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Home.  "  I  will  wait  for  you 
here." 


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